lunarbumwad

2009 Schedule

2010-01-02T17:46:00.001-08:00

No Ironmans this year! Mostly, I just don't want to spend the time to get ready for them. The past four years, it seemed my weeks would revolve around, "When can I get in a long bike ride and when can I get in a long run. (Not to mention, "When can I cut the grass" during the summer.)" It was nice to finish all of the Ironmans and Half-Ironmans that I have ever done, but I enjoy the shorter races just as much (if not more). And I could never really "race" an Ironman. I was simply trying to finish. (Of course, it would help if I got myself into better shape, but where would I find to time to train more than I did this past year?) Maybe I'll be Lance Armstrong/Brett Favre and sometime in the future I'll "get the itch" to come back and try another Ironman. But for now, I'm only doing sprints and Oly's.

All of the following races are part of the SWCS. Doing well in my age group for this series is important, but mainly I'm just happy to support the races and the race directors in the SWCS. I'm not planning on going someplace exotic to do a race this year. (Well, some people might consider Roswell exotic.)

Feb 13th - President's Day Du (WSMR)
Apr 11th - Raptor Du (Holloman AFB)
May 16th - Buffman & Squeaky (Lubbock)
Jun 5th - Milkman (Dexter)
Jun 19th - Chick Fil-A (Amarillo)
Jun 27th - TriRaider (Lubbock)
Jul 10th - Bottomless (Roswell)
Jul 24th - df Ranch (Sweetwater)
Jul 25th - Tumbleweed (Odessa)
Aug 14th - F-1 (Roswell)
Sep 18th - Cotton Country (Levelland)
Sep 26th - Elephant Man (Elephant Butte)
Oct 10th - Raptor (Holloman AFB)
Dec 11th - Polar Bear (WSMR)

A real neat schedule for a school teacher. Some early stuff to keep me motivated, a bunch of racing during June/July when I'm "off", and some racing in the Fall to keep me going.

Should be another great year!

muffinman

2009 Goals Revisited

2010-01-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about my 2009 goals today.

"So, what about 2009? OK, I've got three goals. I will "age up" to the M55-59 age group this year. I'm not going to blow away the competition there even if I can go as fast this year as I have in the past. However, while the "best" guys are quite a bit faster than me, the older age group is just a little slower overall. My first goal is to place in the top ten of my age group at the BSLT 70.3. In order to do this, I will almost certainly need to be faster than last year, but given "normal" weather conditions I ought to be able to do this. My second goal is to finish the Silverman in less time than it took this year. This might seem like a "soft" goal, but just finishing the Silverman is pretty challenging. If the weather there is better, and assuming that I do finish, I should be able to go under 15:30. My last goal is to run a sub 21:00 5K. This is not going to help me much when it comes to running 13.1/26.2 miles at BSLT/Silverman, but it's something I want to do. I used to run 3 miles in 21 minutes when I was a cadet at the USAF Academy, and that seemed pretty easy at the time. As recently as 1996 I could run 1.5 miles in less than 9 minutes. OK, I'm older now, but there are plenty of guys in my age group who can run 5K's even faster than 21 minutes. I'll work on this during the next few months. If I can do it I'll do it before the end of May. One way or the other, I won't worry about trying to do this after the end of May. After that, I'll be racing BSLT and ramping up for Silverman."

I managed to finish 9th in my age group at Buffalo Springs, and I was very happy with that result. I finished Silverman in 13:30:42. which was two hours faster than my 2008 Silverman. (It sure helps to have nice weather.) I never managed a 21-minute 5K run. The best I did was 21:38, two weeks after Silverman.

However, I have real hopes to get below 21 minutes this year. I won't be training for any Ironmans, so I'll have time to spend on running 5K's. The past few years, I was spending so much time doing 3-5 hour bike rides and 1-2 hour runs, there wasn't much time left for anything else.

2010, the year of the 5K run!

muffinman

2010 Goals

2009-12-31T20:10:00.000-08:00

Three goals.

1. Run a sub-21-minute 5K. This has been my goal for the past few years, and I haven't made it yet. But this year, I won't be doing any half or full ironmans, so I'll have some time to train towards this.

2. Set a PR at Buffman & Squeaky

3. Set a PR at Elephant Man

Goals #2 and #3 sort of go together. I really like these two races, they're both Olympic distance, they both have open water swims, and they both have bike courses that aren't perfectly flat (especially Elephant Man). I had a good but not great race this year at Buff & Squeak. I ran a half-marathon "for fun" the day before this year's Elephant Man and I ran out of gas by the time I finished the Elephant Man bike leg. For 2010, I'm going to make a real effort to be ready for these two races and then see what I can do.

muffinman

Silverman 2009

2009-12-13T17:37:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I've graded about 300 chemistry homework assignments, 8 AP Physics lab reports, 24 final exams from my community college classes, raked and bagged the leaves, and sorted the mail. I'm as "caught up" as I've been in two months.

So, it's time to get off my Silverman report.

Straight away, Silverman is the coolest race ever. OK, I've never been to Kona, Escape From Alcatraz, Wildflower, etc., but these races would have to be beyond cool to be better than Silverman. There are plenty of places where you can read about how tough Silverman is. It's definitely not easy, but I'm sure any "iron distance" triathlon isn't easy. I like Silverman for a lot of reasons. The race director really does a great job. It's the best organized race I've ever done. The swag is great. The volunteers are outstanding. The local police go beyond the call of duty. The course is spectacular, starting with a swim in Lake Mead, a bike course across hills and valleys, and a run along pleasant streets and a shopping center in Henderson. And it's Vegas!

I left Clovis after school on Thursday (Nov 5th) and drove 5 hours to Grants, NM. It takes about 13 hours to drive from Clovis to Vegas. You can do packet pick-up on Saturday, but I like to get to Henderson for the Friday packet pick-up and the Friday pre-race dinner. It's an easy drive from Grants to Henderson, other than the bottleneck that Hoover Dam has become. I lived in Vegas from 1978-1980 while I was in the USAF, and we'd occasionally go out to Hoover Dam for something to do. There was no traffic, and almost no other people there. Now, I think it must rival Disneyland as a tourist attraction. They are building a bridge that will cross the canyon so that you don't have to drive across the top of the dam. However, when Myles and I drove there three years ago they were working on the bridge, and it doesn't look like they have made much progress on it. Maybe they didn't get their stimulus money?

Packet pick-up was uneventful. I stayed at the Holiday Inn express that is in the back parking lot of the Sunset Station casino. (The Sunset Station is the host hotel, and I've stayed there the past two years. Their rooms are really nice, but I saved about $100 by staying in the Holiday Inn.) They put on a nice pre-race dinner at the Henderson Convention Center, and Dave Scott was there again to give a short pep-talk and to tell a few funny stories about racing with Mark Allen. (What ever happened to the USA when it comes to getting results in Ironman racing?)

On Saturday I hit the pancake breakfast put on by the LDS church. They had the pre-race meeting on Saturday morning this year. This worked out much better than waiting around for the Saturday afternoon meeting that we've had the past two years. I went back to my room to grade lab reports, and a friend from Clovis called to tell me he'd made it into town. (Tom Duggan, the "Irish guy" that some of you may have met at the Bottomless races.) He was doing the Half-Silverman. I had taken his bike from Clovis to Henderson with me in my car. We made it to packet pick-up with an hour to spare, then took our bikes out to Lake Mead for bike and bag check-in. We did an early dinner at Pizza Hut, then I went to bed while Tom hit the Strip. (Oh, to be young again.)

Sunday was race day. They run shuttles from the Sunset Station to Lake Mead starting at 4:30. Tom's race didn't start until 8:30 (the Full Silverman starts at 7:00) so he slept in while I walked over to the bus. The bus ride takes 20-30 minutes, but when we got to the "Park Entrance", we ran into a problem. (That's another change from when I lived there. It's now "Lake Mead National Recreation Area." When I lived there, you just drove out to the lake and you didn't have to pay anything unless you were using a camp ground.) "Ranger Rick" told the bus driver that it would cost $250 to bring the bus through the gate. I thought he was joking, but "Ranger Rick" was dead serious. Someone said something about paying with a credit card and then getting the race director to reimburse him, but in the end we (the athletes) just got off the bus and walked the 1.5 miles from the gate to the transition area. (Edit to add. The race director and/or one of the volunteers raced up to the "Park Entrance" and got everything sorted out before the second bus arrived, and everyone else got to the start of the race with no problems. And "Ranger Rick" was just doing his job. There's always that 10% of the people involved in anything that somehow fail to get the word ahead of time.)

I check my bike and then went to the changing tent to lie down and relax. I was pretty scared about this race. I had had such a bad time during the 2008 Silverman when it was wet, cold, and windy. Beyond that, "iron-distance" racing is just so tough for me. I really enjoy sprints and olympic distance racing, but once I go beyond the three-hour point, I'm always hurting. I don't just mean uncomfortable, I am hurting. I hoped that I was ready for this year's race, but you never know. It was a real relief when it was time to put on my wetsuit and get into the water.

For the first time this year, I saw Andy Cope when I got into the water. Andy has done the Silverman the past three years. He is a hammer on the bike, but not very fast in the water. We wished each other luck, and then the gun went off right on time at 7:00. Counting the "pro's" (who start with everyone else) and the relay teams, there were only about 220 people in the swim for the Full Silverman. (The Half-Silverman had about 450 swimmers in their wave, but it didn't go off until 8:30.) I know that you get a special vibe at an M-dot race with 2000+ swimmers going off at once, but I much prefer having some space to myself in the water. The water in Lake Mead is clear enough that you can see other swimmers 15-20 feet away. I just pick out one or two people who look like they know where they are going and I follow them. This way I only have to "sight" once in a while, so the swim is pretty easy for me. I finished in 1:15, which was 22 minutes faster than last year when we had the 40 mph winds and four foot waves.

The bike leg at Silverman gets a lot of attention for its 11,000 feet of climbing, but overall I don't think it's too bad. The net gain in elevation is only 1000-2000 feet, so you get a lot of downhill "payback" on the bike. The worst part for me is the long climb at about the 60-mile point. You make a steady climb for 4-5 miles. The grade is probably only 5% or so, but it's a long time to be climbing without a break. The "signature moment" on the bike is at the 92-mile point. You come off the main road onto a bike path, and there you have the "3-Sisters". They are steep (15-18%) and it's no fun doing them after 92 miles of riding. But they're pretty short (maybe two hundred meters each) so you can get out of your saddle and grunt your way over them. They're not easy, but heck, it's supposed to be tough! The last 10 miles or so of the bike are through the streets of Henderson, and you get some great stretches of downhill riding. I finished the bike in 7:21, which was almost 30-minutes faster than last year when I was freezing for the first half of the bike course.

The run is two laps of a 13.1-mile loop. It starts off on a gentle downhill, which can give you a false sense of how fast you can do the run. Then, its a 2-3 mile climb, followed by more descents and more climbs. There isn't much "flat" there. I was taking it real easy on the first lap. Last year, I really struggled on the second lap, and I wanted to save something this year. However, I think my big problem was that I was just about frozen stiff on the second lap last year. This year, the weather was perfect. Still, I was scared about the second lap. I was "running" 10-11 minute laps and walking through the aid stations. Then, I hit the 20 or 21-mile point and I knew that I was "home free". I started "running", and by the last three miles I was doing 8:45 or so miles. For the first time ever in an "iron-distance" race, I broke 5-hours on the run (4:42:46) and my overall time was 13:30. This was my fastest "iron-distance" race ever.

They put on a breakfast and awards ceremony on Monday morning. I picked up the third place trophy for my age group, and then Tom and I hit the road to return to Clovis. (BTW, Tom really enjoyed the Half-Ironman. He's always kind of slow on the swim, but he can normally hammer the bike. However, he did run out of gas towards the end of the bike, and the run is tough for everyone. But he had a lot of fun.) We joined the other tourists for a while at Hoover Dam, then it was off to catch I-40 and back to New Mexico.

I would do this race again in a heartbeat if it was during a "school holiday". It's tough doing it during the school year. The "administration" hates to give time off for a boondoggle like this. Beyond that, I get behind on my classes and it's tough to get caught up again. I haven't signed up for 2010 yet, but it's such a great race, I won't rule anything out.

muffinman

Chile Harvest

2009-08-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that they would have an excellent sprint triathlon in Socorro, NM. Socorro is one of those small towns (population 9000) that you pass while driving on an Interstate Highway (I-25 in this case) and you wonder why the town is there. Like most of these small towns, you'd find a nice community in Socorro if you took the time to stop and visit. Among other things, Socorro is the home of New Mexico Tech, and they have a very pleasant campus on the west side of town. Quite a few of my high school physics and chemistry students end up attending New Mexico Tech.

Socorro is about one hour south of Albuquerque and about two hours north of El Paso/Las Cruces, so they can draw on a fairly large number of potential triathletes. It's a four-hour drive from Clovis to Socorro. I was going to take a pass on the race this year because I didn't want to make that drive, but in the end I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do the race. A factor in my decision was that this race determines the Club Championship for the triathlon clubs in New Mexico. The New Mexico Outlaws had won this the past three years, and no other club had ever won it four years in a row.

They limit the race to about 320 participants and they sell out early every year. This year I got to Socorro early enough on the day prior to the race to do packet pick-up. Along with packet pick-up, they had a free spaghetti dinner and some of the locals playing live bluegrass/country music. I met a couple of guys from Taos, had a nice dinner, and then checked into the Econo Lodge for the night.

They moved the start of the race up to 7:00 AM this year. It was still pretty dark at 6:00 when they opened transition. There were also people doing their packet pick-up on race morning. I was thinking there was no way they would be able to start the race as scheduled. However, they got through the "pre-race briefing" quickly, everyone seemed to get their stuff set-up on time, and we headed over to the pool for the swim start.

Socorro has a nice 50-meter pool with eight lanes. They use chip timing, and the swim is a time trial start with about 5 seconds between swimmers. Some people thought that the swim was too crowded, but I've never had any problems there and I didn't have any problems this year. It's one-way traffic in each lane, and there's plenty of room to pass or to be passed. It is so much less crowded than a big race like Jay Benson where they do a run-bike-swim format. I think it's less crowded than even a small race like the Cotton Country Sprint that also uses the run-bike-swim format. And the amount of "body contact" at this swim doesn't begin to compare to the punching and kicking that takes place at a mass start open water swim.

The swim start order is based on the predicted times of the participants. I had predicted a 400-meter time of 7:52 which put me as the 127th starter. I could see some people in the water ahead of me who must have predicted a six-minute time but who looked like they were going to take more than ten minutes to breast stroke/back stroke/side stroke their way through the water. For myself, I exited the water in 7:48, but by the time I ran over the chip timer I ended up with a swim time of 7:53.

For some reason, I decided to wear my bib number on the bike. No big deal, but it took a few seconds standing in T-1 to get my race belt buckled. (It sure makes more sense to do this during T-2 while I'm running out of transition instead of simply standing at my bike.) Anyway, I headed out on the bike and was quickly passed by fellow Outlaw, Cody, who had started about 30 second behind me on the swim. Last year at this race, I had a really strong bike. I thought I was feeling pretty good this year. I was thinking, "Dang, Cody, when did you get so fast on the bike!" We leap frogged past each other for the first couple of miles before he dropped slightly off my pace. The 20K bike route goes out to two different turn-around points, and there are two north bound legs that are both about two miles long. We had a fairly strong head wind on these two legs, and I knew it was going to hurt my overall bike time. The part of the ride that I always remember is the downhill section that you ride after passing a guard shack about two miles after the second turn around point. It's not very steep, and there are just a couple of easy turns on it, but I'm always going as fast as I dare to ride on a bike unless a road is perfectly straight. I made it back to T-2 about 45 seconds slower than last year's race but at a still reasonably fast (for me) 21.6 mph average speed.

The 5K run starts out on a city street heading north. The first time I did this race, you eventually turned off the street and ran along the top of a dike that borders an irrigation ditch. The last two times they kept the run on city streets. This year, we were back to the run on top of the dike. Not a big deal to me one way or the other, but people seemed to like this run better. With about one mile to go, Patrick Hall caught up to me. He is one year younger than me and I "aged up" this year, so we are not in the same age group, but we're pretty close in ability to each other and pretty competitive in most races. I worked as hard as I could to stay in front of him, although I didn't know if he had started the swim before me or after me. I managed to finish just in front of him (or he kindly allowed me to cross the finish line first). My run time, 23:04, wasn't spectacular, but it was good for me in a swim-bike-run tri.

I registered with active.com for this race, and they sent me an e-mail to "review" the race. It was interesting to see what the other reviewers thought. Almost all of the comments were positive. No one seemed too upset about anything, but a couple of people had suggestions about changing some aspect of the race so that we wouldn't have to run "in the heat of the day." Gosh, most people were finished with the race and their 5K run before 10:00, and I don't think the temperature was above 80 degrees F by then. I can appreciate the wish to avoid running a marathon at noontime in 90 degree temperatures, but this wasn't bad at all. A couple of people commented on how long it took before the awards ceremony started. I thought they got started fairly quickly this year, they had accurate results, the awards were nice (jugs and glasses from a local brewery/restaurant) and everything was wrapped up before 11:30. I wish all races were as quick and organized about their awards ceremonies.

http://community.active.com/message/634461

Overall, my time was about 45 seconds slower than last year (pretty much all from the bike leg) at 1:07:58, but it was fast enough to win my age group. We had a big gang of Outlaws there. Cody, John, and Miguel also won their groups, Michi, Mark, Debi, and Brian all ended up on their podiums, and we had plenty of other finishers. In the end, we had plenty of firepower at this race to successfully defend the State Club Championship again. Now we'll have to get ready for next year!

muffinman

USAT Life

2009-07-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

Is summer great or what! The annual Brett Favre soap opera, NCAA football "media days" for each and every conference in the country, and plenty of free time for me. Yesterday the summer issue of "USA Triathlon Life" arrived. Receiving this magazine must be one of the "bennies" of being a USAT member. It's not the greatest magazine that I've ever read, but it's not bad by any means. Two interesting items in this issue.

There was an article, "The New Carbon", talking about water shortages around the world and especially how this relates to the Southwest US. They reference a study that projects a 50% chance that Lake Mead will be dry by 2021. I'm not sure what their definition of "dry" would be. Do they mean absolutely no water (I don't think so), just a few mudholes (maybe), or so little water that Hoover Dam won't be able to generate electricity (also maybe). Even more dire is the 10% chance that Lake Mead will go dry by 2014 (five years from now). Looking at this as an optimist, there is a 90% chance that it won't go dry in the next five years. However, it is pretty depressing to look at the "bathtub ring" around Lake Mead when I go out there for the Silverman Tri. There are also abandoned marinas that used to be on the shore line when I was living there in the late 70's. Now, they are a half-mile or more from the water. Maybe it will start to rain and snow in the Southwest again, or people will give up their grass lawns, or we'll stop irrigating lettuce fields in the middle of the desert. But I'm kind of pessimistic.

Less depressing, and a lot more nerdy, was the column giving a short summary about the demographics of triathletes. They provided a link that you can go to if you want to read the entire report.

http://usatriathlon.org/content/index/817

Here are some of the things in the report.

"Triathlon participation in the United States is at an all-time high, following unprecedented growth over the past 10 years. USA Triathlon can easily track the surge through its membership numbers, which surpassed 115,000 annual members in early 2009. To put that into perspective, annual membership hovered between 15,000 and 21,000 from 1993 to 2000."

Wow, that's pretty good growth! BTW, based on data for the 107,000 USAT members from last year (2008), 62% are male and 38% are female. In 2000, only 27% were female.

There are 525 members from New Mexico (ahead of Mississippi (478), Rhode Island (472), Alaska (437), Maine (372), Delaware (239), Montana (197), Nebraska (164), Vermont (146), Wyoming (123), West Virgina (117), South Dakota (75), and North Dakota (27)). Wow, how far do you need to travel to get to a race if you live in North Dakota?

Not counting the "17 and under" youth group, the largest age group is 35-39 (17,112) followed by 40-44 (15,469). There are only 24 people over 80 years old, and none over 90 years old. (I'm setting my sights on qualifying for Kona in 2044 when I hit 90.)

In 2004, USAT sanctioned 897/277 triathlons/duathlons. In 2008, USAT sanctioned 1769/425 triathlons/duathlons. They estimate that another 500 non-sanctioned races were held last year.

The median income for triathletes was $126,000 last year. (It's even higher for the athletes surveyed who were doing "M-dot Ironmans".) I hope to hit the mean sometime.

63% of triathletes are married, and 44% have kids living at home.

The average triathlete spent about $4000 on the sport last year.
$2,274 spent on bikes in past 12 months
$564 spent on race fees in past 12 months
$524 spent on bike equipment
$370 spent on training, running and athletic footwear
$277 spent on nutritional supplements
Of course these are "average expenses". I didn't buy a bike last year. (My current bike is almost five years old, but it still works fine.) I did spend money on tires, cables, chains, etc., last year. But what doesn't show here is the amount of money spent on "travel". Between gas and lodging, I must have spent almost $1000 going to races, and I didn't go anywhere "exotic". And anyone who does an "M-dot Ironman" spends over $500 for entry fees/active.com fees for that one race.

Sadly, triathlon seems to be like golf, NASCAR, and thoroughbred horse racing when it comes to minorities. According to their numbers, triathlon is an overwhelmingly "white" sport.
88.2% are Caucasian/White
3.2% are Hispanic
2.1% are Asian
1.5% are Multi-racial
0.5% are African-American
1.1% are other
Here in the SWCS, we have a fair number of Hispanic participants, but African-Americans are pretty rare. There are any number of social-economic reasons for this, but it leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable.

OK, I've finally got another race coming up! The Socorro Chile Harvest Tri is this weekend. I think I'll get off the computer and head out for some speed work.

muffinman

Velo News

2009-07-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of you read Velo News on your own, but for those of you who don't (or who don't have your summers off giving you plenty of time to read.......)

The most recent issue came off the press about half-way through this years Tour. There are a couple of neat columns discussing the Contador/Armstrong situation. The editor, Ben Delaney, writes how the race could have been sort of boring. You know, Astana crushes the field in the TTT then controls the race the rest of the way putting three of their riders on the podium. But here you had Armstrong getting into a break after the split on Stage 3 and then putting two of the Astana domestiques (Popovych and Zubeldia) on the front to drive the break and to keep the peloton (with his teammate and designated team leader) from catching the break. Armstrong picked up 41 seconds on Contador. So then Contador throws in his own attack on Stage 7 to move himself back in front of Armstrong. "Instead of high fives, there was tight-lipped grumbling in the Astana camp." Of course now the Tour is over, and we know how the race turned out. I'd like to read the book by the fly on the wall telling what it was like on the team bus and at meals during the race.

I know there are a lot of "Lance Fans" out there. I don't hate the guy, but I'm not a huge fan. Some of the fans have seemed to develop a certain amount of dislike for Contador. (Mostly because he is beating up on Lance?) Andrew Hood wrote a nice column about how "Contador Rides Alone". He had two people with him at this year's Tour, his brother and a Spanish journalist. He has the same girlfriend that he had in high school, the same friends, he lives near his parents house, and he calls his mom on the phone every night. The contrast with Armstrong and his posse of bodyguards, advisors, and celebrities (Bono, Robin Williams, and Ben Stiller) was pretty stark. (No need to get into the details of Armstrong's personal life. You can read "US Weekly" for that story.) I know that Contador isn't raising money for cancer research, but he seems like a nice guy.

There is a long article about mountain bike stage racing. I used to ride a mountain bike in Germany a lot. I would ride on trails that you couldn't ride on a road bike, but nothing too "technical". It seems like mountain biking here in the US is all about "wicked single-track" with off camber switchbacks, rocks, roots, and hike-a-bike sections. (Not to mention the requirement to start and/or end every sentence with the word "Dude".) You can guess I don't do much mountain biking here. I don't plan on signing up for one of these races either. Among other things in the article, they said the following. "Like triathlon's Ironman events, the epics target the doctor and lawyer crowd, as entry fees regularly surpass $1000 a pop." If you read the article, you'll see where the entry fees might be as much as $2000-$3000 depending on how much support you want when you do the race. Gee, and we complain about $550 for an Ironman.

Last of all, there is a full page add for "dznuts" chamois cream on page 61. (BTW, you need to pronounce "dznuts" as a two-syllable vs. a three-syllable word.) OK, we can all appreciate the benefits of a bit of friction relief down there. But this add is really out there. In case you didn't know, they splash the line "protect your junk" across the add. There is a picture of Mark Cavendish winning Stage 5 at the Tour of California, pointing at his crotch. This was "the dznuts salute." They attribute the following quote to Cavendish, "dznuts is such a necessity for me that I dedicated a win to it!" Once again according to the add, dznuts is "the official junk protector of Garmin Slipstream and Columbia Highroad". Well, if you see some at your LBS, make sure to pick up a tube for me. After all, if it works for these guys...........

muffinman

Runner's World

2009-07-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

I like "Runner's World" magazine. I've probably gotten more useful tips from it than from any of the other magazines that I read. A few observations from the August 2009 issue.

How cool is it that they had Sarah Palin as their "I'm a Runner" person on the last page. They get some pretty interesting people there. FWIW, I didn't vote for Senator McCain and former governor Palin last year. I think she would have been a terrible vice-president (especially if she didn't quit after a couple of years). But I'm glad she does some running and that the magazine gave her some space to talk about her running.

On page 2, there is an add for a women's razor. How many guys use the "Venus Spa Breeze" razor to shave their legs?

There is a short article about Scout Bassett who runs with a prosthetic leg. They also referenced Sarah Reinertsen. I'm sure I saw Sarah at this year's BSLT 70.3, but I didn't see her name in the results. I have seen her there a couple of other times, and I know she has finished BSLT (along with Kona) before.

At the back of every issue, they have their "advertising section", where you can look at running related "stuff" and they also have a lot of adds for races. I looked at the rest of the magazine where they had full and half page adds for 12 other races. Two of these 12 were "trail runs" and three of them simply advertised that they were putting on a run. Of the remaining seven, one of them was a cancer research fund raiser, two had a tie in to Disney, and four were somehow associated with rock and roll music. Nothing wrong with any of this. It was simply interesting to me how many races (and race directors) threw in some "hook" to get people to their race, other than simply, "Hey, we're going to get together for a run. Hope to see you there!"

There was an article about going to the "big box" stores to try and find running gear. I know that today, I get more wrapped up in having the "right" shoes, shorts, etc, than I did twenty years ago. I used to go by the BX, buy some "running" shoes on the basis that they looked good, three pairs of cotton tube socks, and two pairs of nylon shorts. Seemed to work, and I was sure faster then!

Speaking of gear, they reviewed four pairs of sunglasses. They ranged from $69 to $149. I still buy glasses from "Boston Bill" for $40. http://www.bostonbill.com/ Yeah, I'm pretty cheap.

They also reviewed some MP3 Players/Digital Radios/Cell Phones that you can take on a bike/run to listen to some tunes (or even more, in the case of the radios/phones). OK, I get why people want to do this on a long bike/run. I also understand why USAT doesn't allow them, and why some running races have banned them. I've never used them in training or racing, and I don't see myself starting. Too much "sensory deprivation" for me. I just think about physics problems, chemistry labs, what's happening in "the news", and when I'm going to get around to cutting the grass. (And sometimes I'll sing to myself, but you wouldn't want to hear any of that.)

There were (of course), a lot of articles/columns about running and run training. If you are interested in running half-marathons, running in hot weather, or dealing with nagging injuries, you'll want to read the magazine. (I will say I rolled my eyes a little about the guy with the hurt leg eventually going to a "doctor" who told him to have his "adult intellectual self" talk to his "child" about how "I know you had to put up with a lot of garbage. But I'm here for you now. Now I'm going to help you." If it works, who am I to say.......... I'll leave it to the professionals to debate.)

BTW, I'm not being paid for plugging the magazine. But it was a good read!

muffinman

Bottomless Is The TOPS!

2009-07-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the 26th annual Bottomless Lake Triathlon. http://myweb.cableone.net/janolesinski/ This race is so cool for so many reasons. It's a great venue, anyone under 18 years old races for free, you get a discount if you sign up for this race and the "sister" F-1 Tri, they combine both races into the "Bottomless Series" and give awards to the podium finishers in the series, and the engraved trophies are some of the best trophies you'll ever get if you finish on the podium. The race director, Jan Olesinski, really does a great job putting this and the "sister" F-1 Triathlon together. This year, Jan was out of town, but Perry Toles took over and everything came off without a hitch. Perry is one of the fastest athletes in the area, but he's nursing a knee surgery this year, so I didn't have to worry about finishing behind him (again) in the race.

The race takes place at Bottomless Lakes State Park, which includes a fairly large water filled sinkhole where they hold the swim. The race is advertised as a 400m swim, 14K bike, and 4K run. I guess they like the number "4", because none of the distances are exactly as advertised. The buoy on the swim course is placed in the lake without (as far as I can tell) the benefit of a GPS receiver or a laser range finder. It has been as long as 600m and as short as 300m during some of the races that I have done there. However, I think it was pretty close to 400m the past two years. I know the bike is 7.86 miles (not quite 13k) long, which is pretty much dictated by the road that loops around the park. Finally, the run is probably about 4.4k long (based on my race times vs. my 5k times). Part of this is because there is a long run from T-2 to the road which could be where they start measuring the run. Anyway, the distances are the same for everyone, so it's not a big deal to me. And it's the shortest race I do, so I can finish in less than one hour!

Some of the big names in the SWCS showed up for the race. Bobby Gonzales (48 years old) and Colleen Burns (60 years old) represent the "ageless wonders" who shoot for the overall win in the races they do. Jason Atkinson, one of the fastest runners in any race, represented the "young guns". Larry Marshall, the race director for the Milkman Tri, showed up to race and he brought over the bike racks and carpet to cover the gravel in the transition area. Kori Mannon, the race director for my favorite race (the Elephant Man Tri) was there. Mike and Marti Greer, who put on several races including the BSLT IM 70.3 were both there. (Race directors are my heroes.) "Iron Mike" Baker showed up in a 1986 vintage red and white speedo race brief. And a bunch of fellow "Outlaws" were there. (Brian and Misty, MG and Michi, Stuart and Helen, "Bones" Mackenzie, "Stitch" Zetocha, Naomi, Karen, and me.) All told, they had about 120 people racing.

The race is scheduled to start at 8:30. Some folks wish it would start earlier to avoid the high temperatures. Personally, I like the start time. I can leave home at 5:00 in the morning and get to the race in plenty of time. It's not that hot at 8:30 (certainly I train a lot in hotter temperatures) and almost everyone finishes by 10:00. The air temperature was still only in the 80's at 11:00 when I left after the awards ceremony, so I didn't think anyone had to deal with anything too extreme. They had three waves (women, old guys, and young guys) separated by 5 minutes. I am a huge fan of wave starts to keep the kicking and punching down to a minimum on the swim. The water was 78 degrees F, but this isn't a USAT race and for a short swim I'll never overheat in my sleeveless wetsuit. Since I'm such a feeble swimmer, I'm almost a minute faster even in a short race like this if I wear my wetsuit. So, I pulled on the neoprene and headed over to the race start. They got the ladies lined up and by my watch they started the race about 30 seconds before 8:30. Alright, that's the way to get everyone organized!

I went off in the old guy wave exactly 5 minutes later. I wanted to make up for the slow swim I had done at Buffalo Springs two weeks ago. I made a real effort to go out fast and then stay up with the front half of my wave. I felt like I was working hard, and I never felt that during the swim at Buffalo Springs, but I was far from blowing up. I finished the swim in 7:24, which is about right for a "fast" 400m for me, and I think I was in the top twenty or so of the old guy wave. After a fairly slow 2-minute T-1, it was off on the bike.

You have a few hundred meters of flat coming out of T-1 and then you hit a fairly good hill. It's not particularly steep, and it's not long, but it sure gets your heart rate up. Once on top of the plateau, I started picking up the pace. The road is pretty rough, but no worse than some of the roads that I train on. I was soon cruising along at 22-24 mph, figuring that "I must be really strong today!" (Not realizing that there was a 10 mph tail wind.) I was passing quite a few people, but one "old guy" went by me. They didn't write our ages on our calves, so I didn't know if this guy was in my age group or not. (It turned out he wasn't.) So I picked up my pace to keep him in my sights. The course drops pretty quickly off the plateau, but just when you reach the bottom you have a short but steep climb. Once past that, it's a flat (and bumpy) three miles back to T-2. I finally caught and passed the unknown fellow old guy, finished with a 21.7 mph average, and entered T-2 just behind "Bones".

I had a fast (for me) T-2, and started the run about 20 meters behind "Bones". I worked as hard as I could, and eventually caught "Bones" before the turn-around. We both watched as, first Colleen cruised past us on the run and then Jason went by (after making up the 5-minute head start that we had on him) like we were standing still. Dang, I used to be able to run. Anyway, "Bones" eventually got tired of my pace and he took off. I was staying at my red line trying to hold off any potential challenge from the unknown old guy. Last year, Mark Balsiger was coming up behind me fast on the run, and I just held him off by one second. In the end, there was nobody close behind me this year, and I finished the race in just under 52 minutes.

Among the other nice features at this race, you can jump in the lake after you're done, and then they have outdoor showers. The race is timed with stopwatches, but they get the awards ceremony organized pretty quickly. It's interesting that the order of finish between the people in a given age group doesn't seem to change even though it's a short race. It's just that there are only 10-30 seconds separating people who are normally separated by 1-2 minutes. This was another race for the veteran racers. Bobby and Colleen were the first place overall winners. (Once again, 48 and 60 years old!) They don't have the results posted yet, but if I remember correctly (and forgive me for any mistakes), Brian, Misty, Michi, Naomi, and I all won our groups, and Helen finished on the podium in her group. Everything was wrapped up and we were in our car headed out of there before 11:30. It's so cool to be finished up in time to stop at Farley's for lunch and then still get home in time to mow the grass.

muffinman

June Is Bustin' Out

2009-06-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

I've been a school teacher for the past 13 years. Don't go into "teaching" just so that you can have your summers "off". In the first place, there is always something that you need to do during the summer to get ready for the next year. Even more, if you're miserable for 10 months of the year, the two-month summer break won't make up for that. However, it is pretty neat to be able to spend as much time as I do on training and racing during June and July. Just for fun, I did some kind of "training" or racing every day this month. I had never done that before. Admittedly, some of my "training" was just an easy swim or an easy spin on the bike while I was tapering for/recovering from a race. However, I got in more than 500 miles on the bike, more than 100 miles of running, and about 15 miles of swimming. Not enough to turn pro, but a lot of miles for me. And I still did three races this month.

The first race was the Milkman in Dexter, NM, which I've already blogged about. Two weeks later I headed up to Amarillo for the first ever "Chick-Fil-A Triathlon". The folks putting this race together did a pretty nice job for their first try at putting on a race, especially since they pulled everything together in less than six weeks. And then the rains came! It's been pretty dry in West Texas/Eastern New Mexico for the past eight months. But it started to rain the night before the race. I drove through pouring rain between Clovis and Amarillo on the way to the race. It wasn't raining when I arrived in Amarillo, but as soon as I got to packet pick-up, it started raining again. By the time the race was supposed to start, the streets were flooded. I was getting ready to drive home, figuring that the race would be cancelled.

When I was flying airplanes in the USAF, it was fairly easy to accomplish the "mission" when everything (the airplanes, the weather, your wingmen) were working or going according to "the plan". You earned your money by being able to deal with busted airplanes, crappy weather, and/or a wingman who was screwing up. On this day in Amarillo, the Chick-Fil-A race director managed to pull a rabbit out of his hat and put together a "swim/run duathlon". Everyone dropped their running shoes off in the transition area and then lined up at the pool for a time-trial swim start. There were a lot of "first-timers" in the race, but the race director got 120 racers organized quickly in spite of the continuing rain.

It was a 400 meter "snake swim" in an outdoor pool. Everyone was seeded based on their predicted time, and as always there were some folks who must have put down "5 minutes" who ended up breast stroking after the first 25 meters. Still, the swim seemed to go well. I managed to hit my predicted time of 7:57 right on the dot. I splashed over to the transition area, pulled my shoes from the the puddle of water that they were floating in, struggled to pull on the wet shoes over my wet feet, and headed out on the run.

The run started on a grassy field that went around some tennis courts. I was one of the first runners there, and it was already soaked and starting to get muddy. I made it through there, feeling sorry for the folks who would be coming behind me. After that, I really started flying. The course might have been a tad short, but I finished the "5K" run in 21:04, easily my fastest 5K run in the past year. Chick-Fil-A provided everyone with a free lunch, and the marble trophies handed out at the awards ceremony were some of the best in the SWCS. I ended up first in my age group, loaded all of my wet gear in my car, and headed home just as the rain started to let up.

Then it was time for the BSLT 70.3 (formerly known as the Buffalo Springs Half-Ironman). This was the 20th year that Mike and Marti Greer have been putting on this race. It's a world class event with slots for Kona and Clearwater, and I'm lucky to have it here in my backyard. Along with the 70.3, they put on a sprint tri. Clovis is still far from being a hotbed of triathlon activity, but we had six folks and two relays entered in the 70.3 along with 10 more people in the sprint. A lot of them came by our house (along with fellow Outlaws Brian and Misty) on Saturday for a pre-race cookout. We headed off to Lubbock later on Saturday for packet pick-up, dinner at Orlando's, and then five hours of sleep at Motel 6.

Race morning arrived with completely overcast skies and lightning on the horizon. I've done this race seven times as part of a relay or by myself. It's known for being hot (one year it went over 100 degrees F), and normally it is. However, last year it rained for almost the entire time and it was cold. That was actually my most miserable time at this race. I was hoping we weren't going to be in for a repeat of that weather. Thankfully, it never got cold, the lightning stayed away, and it didn't start raining until most of us were coming back on the bike and then it was in the "passing showers" mode of rain.

There was a fairly long wait for the porta potties this year. Part of the problem was the number of porta potties. A bigger problem seemed to be the amount of time that some people were spending "on the pot". I don't know if they're reading the Sunday NY Times or what, but for goodness sake, if you don't have to "go", get off of the pot. Otherwise, take care of business, wipe with both hands, and get the heck out of there!

The swim goes off in waves. There are pluses and minuses associated with this. On the minus side, if you are going for the "overall" win, you don't know where you stand in relation to someone who was in a different wave. Some of the "fast swimmers" in the later waves complain about having to "swim through" slower swimmers in previous waves. The biggest complaint is the people in the last few waves feel they're stuck out on the course in warmer weather than the people who were in the first waves. I much prefer the wave start, though.

Straight away, the swim at Buffalo Springs starts in a small cove. It would be impossible to put 1000 swimmers into the water at the same time. Each wave has about 150-200 swimmers. This keeps the punching and kicking to a minimum, and I think it does a better job of allowing/requiring swimmers to swim at their own pace as opposed to everyone ending up in the same huge blob of humanity. There is a lot of complaining about drafting on the bike at M-dot races. My experience at IMAZ (with 2000 people doing a swim mass start) is that about 1000 people exit the water withing 20 minutes of each other. Combine this with a flat bike course, and what would you expect? IMFL and some of the other M-dot races must be as bad or worse. As far as getting stuck in hot weather because you were in one of the last waves, I don't see this. I've been in the next to last wave every year until this year. There is only a 30 minute difference between the first and last "age group" wave. The last wave goes off at 7:05 AM. For a "6-hour 70.3", you finish at about 12:30 PM if you are in the 1st wave, and 1:00 PM if you are in the last wave. It's not as if the temperature suddenly goes from 70 degrees F at 12:00 up to 90 degrees F at 12:30. Sure, it's no fun to run in hot weather, but the 30 minute (or less) difference is not a huge factor.

I was pretty happy while I was doing my swim. The first leg of the swim at this race (and at the Buffman and Squeaky race which is in the same location) is straight towards the east. Normally, I can never see the buoys, so I just follow the other swimmers in my wave. This year, with the overcast sky, I could see every buoy, especially the huge yellow buoys that marked the turn points on the swim course. There was very little kicking and punching going on, and I felt very relaxed. When I exited the water, I figured out why the swim felt so easy. Forty-four minutes! OK, in previous years when I was doing the swim in about 35 minutes, I figured the course was a little short of 1.2 miles. But I was way slow this year. It's like running a mile in 6 minutes vs. walking it in 30 minutes. One hurts, the other is easy. I sure didn't hurt myself on this year's swim! (BTW, there is a "BSLT thread" on slowtwitch.com where they were discussing the length of this year's swim. One guy has some algorithm based on the pro's swim times, whether they were wearing wetsuits, etc. He figures this year's course was about 100 meters long. Not a big deal for a 1.2-mile open water swim, and everyone swims the same course anyway.)

After the slow swim, I had a lot left in the tank for the bike and run. I felt good coming out of T-1 and climbing the two hills that you have on the first mile of the bike. I dipped my head to get a drink from my aero bottle and I discovered I'd forgotten to get my plastic straw out of the bottle (where I'd placed it when I left home so that I wouldn't lose it). I had to stop to fish it out so that I could push it into its hole. While I was doing this, Scott, one of my good competitors from my age group in the SWCS, passed me and asked if I needed any help. Well, maybe a new checklist for my transition area check. Anyway, this took less than a minute, and I was back on the road. The wind was out of the north at 10-15 mph. A lot of people were talking about the wind after the race, but after riding in Clovis for the past 16 years, this was no big deal. Heading south towards Yellow House Canyon, I came up behind a 21-year old guy on a bike drinking from a water bottle. Instead of putting the bottle back onto his bike, he did his best "Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France" imitation and tossed it into the field beside the road. We had just passed the 1st aid station a mile or two earlier. I rode up to him and told him (in my school teacher voice), "Throw your bottles away at the aid stations, not into some farmers field!" He came back with (in a whipped puppy voice), "But it wasn't empty then." Good grief.

I never could catch Scott on the bike. I've been riding really well this year, so I was surprised to see at each of the three turn-arounds that Scott was maintaining a two minute lead. Dang! Other than that, I was riding well for this course. In addition to the hills coming out of the transition area, there are four other pretty good climbs and one more long, slow climb. I'm always trying to save something for the run, too, so I never go very fast there. It started to rain during the last 15 miles of the bike, which was nice as far as keeping me cool, but the road was fairly slick, especially on a couple of the corners. In the end, I had a PR for the bike there at 2:54.

I stopped in the most foul porta potty I've ever been in coming out of T-2, but having taken care of business, I was off on the run. The first three miles are flat, but then you hit a hill. Almost immediately, you go down a hill, then back up another one. The run on the "Energy Lab #2" road out to the turn-around is a relief because it's flat. I really felt good on the run. I knew Scott was a couple of minutes ahead of me coming out of T-2, but by the turn around I'd cut the lead to less than a minute. With about four miles to go, I finally caught up to him. I told him how well he did on the bike, he told me how well I was going on the run, and then I kept on going. At about two miles to go I passed another guy in my age group. He told me, "There are three other guys in front of us." Well, I thought it would be great to finish in fourth place, but I knew what the finish times for my age group had been in previous years. I was secretly hoping for a "top 10" finish. I ended up with a run PR (1:48) and a race PR (5:31:56) in spite of my swim PW. Sure enough, I finished 9th in my age group. For that, I was really happy.

This is a great race, and it's so cool that it's less than a two-hour drive from my house. Mike and Marti really know what they are doing, the course is a true test of individual ability (if you want to draft on the bike and/or you can't run on hills, this isn't the race for you), and they get great volunteers every year (especially the ones who stuck it out in the rain the past two years). I'll never earn a Kona slot here, but it's still fun to race against some really fast folks.

Next up, the Bottomless Tri in Rosewell, NM.

And four months until Silverman!

muffinman

First to Worst

2009-06-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

During the past month, I've done three triathlons. None of them show up in magazines advertising a rock band every mile, or visions of the NYC skyline, or Hollywood "stars" doing the same race, or a chance to have Mickey Mouse cheer me on as I run through the Magic Kingdom, much less the coveted "Ironman" label. However, they're the kind of races I've come to prefer. I don't need/want 2000 plus people climbing over each other during a swim mass start and packs of cyclists drafting each other on the bike course. Encouragement from any spectators who happen to be there is nice but not necessary, and garage rock bands are just silly. If I go to a "destination", I'd better be taking my wife and daughter with me, and I'd better not be spending my "family time" doing a triathlon. And all of these races were within a two-hour drive from my house.

First up was the Ransom Canyon Tri just outside Lubbock, TX. This was my first ever triathlon back in 2002. That year, they only had 62 people show up. They didn't get 100 people there until 2007, and this year they still only had 110 individual participants. But it's a real quality race. An open water swim, a really steep hill straight out of T-1, another canyon to traverse out and back on the bike, and a nice 5K run along the shore of the lake. I had a pretty slow swim, a PR on the bike, and an average run, but still managed to win my age group.

Next, the Buffman and Squeaky Tri, next door to the Ransom Canyon Tri. I have done this race every year of its existence (including the first year, 2004, when it was called the M&M Tri). I really like this race. In 2004, they only had 83 participants, but now they get around 120 each year. (They also put on a sprint tri on the same day at the same place, so it there are about 200 people there.) It's an Olympic distance race at the same location as the Buffalo Springs Half Ironman (now known as the BSLT 70.3). The swim is pretty much the same at both races. The Buff and Squeak bike also has a hill straight out of transition. You pretty much ride the first third of the BSLT 70.3 bike course, which includes the same canyon as the Ransom Canyon Tri. The run is an out and back around the lake to the three mile point of the BSLT 70.3 run. This time, I had a fast swim, another PR on the bike, and an "almost PR" on the run. Overall, it was a PR for this race and I won my group again.

Last week, it was the Milkman Sprint Tri in Dexter, NM. I'm pretty sure no one ever says, "Let's spend our next vacation in Dexter, NM." (Although Roswell, which is only about 15 miles north, gets a fair amount of tourist trade for their alien museum.) However, the race director and everyone in Dexter who supports this race are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. I have done this race every year since 2002. At one time, they used to get 300 or so people there. Since 2002, they have been closer to 180 participants, with only 147 individuals showing up in 2007. However, this year, they were up to 236 individuals (along with 25 relay teams). Best of all, most of the increase was in the "younger" age groups. It's another open water swim (in a large duck pond (named Lake Van by some optimist)) but they do wave starts with 20-30 people per wave. This is a good thing, because the bike course is pretty flat. The wave starts keep everyone spread out so that drafting does not seem to be a huge problem (although "Iron Mike" Baker, the USAT official, did assess some penalties). The run is pretty neat. You start out on the blacktop road that goes around the pond, run through a fish hatchery, divert off onto a tractor path through some scrub land, return to the road, then you finish by running across a grass field through a finishing chute. I had a mediocre swim, another PR on the bike (must be the Raisin Bran?), then an average run. Not my fastest time there, and 60-year-old Ted Freedman caught and passed me at the half-way point on the run, but I was still fast enough to win my group.

And that brings me to "First to Worst". In addition to being the fastest person in my group, I was also the slowest. For the first time ever, I was the only person in my age group in a race. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing for the local Tri scene. Like I said, they had a lot of people at this year's Milkman Tri, especially in the age groups between the ages of 20-49. I was reading yesterday how Harley Davidson is having a hard time. Something like only 15% of the people who buy a Harley are younger than 35, and they're running out of new buyers. It's a good thing to get some "young blood" into the local Tri scene. These guys and gals are really fast and they sure make the races more fun and exciting.

Next up, the Chick-fil-a Tri in Amarillo, TX. The overall winners (male and female) both receive a year's worth of free Chick-fil-a food. I can always hope!

muffinman

Run on the Yellow Brick Road

2009-03-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

The Jan 2009 issue of "Runners World" magazine carried its usual column by Jeff Galloway. In it, he posed as "Fact of Fiction" something that I hear a lot of runners discussing. To quote, "Asphalt is softer than concrete and treadmills are softer than both. FICTION. While some people say they feel the differences among the surfaces, after coaching more than 250,000 runners, I haven't seen any difference in rate of injury or fatigue when running on asphalt, concrete, of treadmills. You can reduce the impact on your body on any surface by taking enough walk breaks from the beginning and wearing a running shoe that fits your foo well."

If I had a dime for every time I've read or heard someone say, "Running on trails is so much easier on your body", I could retire and become a full-time triathlete. This might be true in some parts of the world. I'm thinking about some of the "trails" in Germany that I used to bike and walk the dogs on. They were nice and wide, well maintained, with thousands of years worth of decayed leaves ground into the surface, and enough rain to keep things soft without being muddy. My experience in the Southwest portion of the United States says otherwise. Trails here are hard as rocks. (Because a lot of them are simply rock, and those that aren't rock are compacted sand or caliche clay, which might as well be rock.) I hear people saying things like, "That trail is so cool! Lots of technical single track." Well yeah, lots of places where you can't pass without somebody moving off the trail, and don't even think about looking anywhere other than the trail six feet in front of you because you'll miss the rock/root/gully that will trip you and/or sprain your ankle (or worse).

If running on trails is easier, it's because you can't run very fast. Ten-minute miles seem to be regarded as a reasonably fast pace. (Although the fastest trail runners do go faster.) It's hard to get into a rhythm. Start, stop, turn left, turn right, jump up, jump down. It's a great way to get in a "weight room" training session for your legs, but less so when it comes to exercising your aerobic engine.

If I'm going to "run", give me a street/road/highway any day. I don't think you get any additional cushioning by running on a trail, and I don't have to worry about stepping on a rock or falling into a gopher hole. Would I ever run on a trail? I have, and I will again, but I maintain that "running" is a relative term when you compare roads to trails. I'm not fast on either, but I sure feel better on a road.

Even a yellow brick road.

muffinman

We're Not Worthy!

2009-03-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

Enough of the off-season. I went to the Raptor Du (formerly know as the Stealth Du) at Holloman AFB last weekend. The perfect way to kick off the year and to get me motivated to get back into training.

The folks at Holloman have been putting on a spring du and a fall tri since before I ever did a race. There are some real horror stories about the lack of organization there during some of the past races. The first race I did there was the Oct 2003 tri. I am retired military, so I didn't have any problem getting on base. I spent 4 months at Holloman back in 1977 doing the old "fighter lead in" program, so I more or less knew my way around. However, when I got to the pool, it didn't look like anyone was there, there was nothing in the way of a transition area, and the door to the pool was locked. I wasn't that early, so I started to think I must be at the wrong place. However, a couple of other people were also standing around, and shortly a few "USAF types" showed up and started setting things up. After a fairly long time, someone who seemed to be the race director showed up and got the building unlocked. It turned out that the gate guards didn't have a list of the "civilians" who they were supposed to allow on base, so a lot of people were showing up late. This turned out not to be a problem, since nothing else was ready to go. The race finally started about two hours late. The race itself wasn't too bad, other than the lack of marking/guides on the bike route. The two leading women ("Gabi" and "Mary", both elite-level athletes) took a wrong turn and ended up out in the boondocks northwest of the base. Mary bagged the race after that, but Gabi kept going. I was actually pretty pleased to have her pass me during the swim leg (it was a run/bike/swim tri). For a while, I thought I'd biked faster than she had biked. Things were so bad that year that I received an "apology letter" from the Services Squadron commander a week later.

Since then, their races have generally been pretty well organized. They have been slow getting the results/awards compiled, but they seemed to be trying. This year, everything was very nicely done. Everything was set up early, they started exactly "on time" at 8:00, they had road guards out (although this didn't prevent everyone from running a few extra meters when we followed the first few runners past one of the turns, and a couple of people on the bike turned early down a dead-end street), and they had a lot of people working the timing and recording issues. We had time for a quick shower, then they provided a pasta "brunch" (it was still only 10:30 in the morning), followed by a quick but accurate and well organized awards ceremony. They had hard copies of the final results for everyone, and the whole show was wrapped up by 11:30. They really had their stuff together, and I'm looking forward to the tri in October.

The "we're not worthy" portion of this entry has to do with one of the guys in my age group. Actually, "Mark" is four years older than me, so I only have to deal with him the year when I age up, the same year that he is a senior citizen in the group. When I was little, I was a reasonable baseball player. I figured with a little extra practice, I could play in the big leagues. However, baseball skill evaluation can be pretty subjective. I'm not sure that everyone playing MLB today was tearing up their little league circuit. Somehow, they managed to make it, though. However, "endurance sports" are fairly easy to evaluate. If you can run/bike/swim/ski/etc. faster than the other guy, you win. Eventually, you'll get older, and the younger guys will catch you, but you can hang on to some "age group" glory. Mark is simply ageless. OK, he can crush me like a grape in a duathlon where his faster running and biking give me no chance. He doesn't swim really fast, so I can get some cushion in a tri with a "long" swim (1500m or longer). Even then, I'll need a good day on the bike/run to stay with him. The amazing thing to me, he was 6th overall at the Raptor Du. He was the fastest person there over the age of 39. Mark is 59 years old. (Do the math, he'll be 60 next year.) He's not the only "old guy" doing incredible things in the world of multisport, but he's the one on the local circuit that I know and who I get to compete against. I'm going to train hard and do my best in my races with him, but gosh all fish hooks, some people are simply better than the rest of us.

We're not worthy!

muffinman

Goals

2009-01-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

I looked up my 2008 goals that I'd set a year ago.

"So, what about 2008? I've never really worried about having an "A-race" to plan around, but I really want to concentrate on two races this year. I've done the BSLT 70.3 before, but mostly I just wanted to finish the race. Given the level of competition there, I won't ever finish on the podium (top half of my age group is possible), but I'm going to shoot to finish in under 5:45. (The winner of my age group will be about one hour in ahead of this.) I did the Half-Silverman in 2007, and I'm moving up to the Full Silverman this year. OK, just finishing is my goal, but if I train the way I plan to train, I should be able to finish in under 15:00. (The winner of my age group will be about three hours ahead of this.)"

How did I do? The short answer is that I was one for two. I finished BSLT in 5:44:27 (13/36 in my age group). I finished Silverman in 15:30:09 (6/12 in my age group).

Now for the excuses. Although I "met my goal" at BSLT, I could have gone even faster. It was raining during almost the entire bike ride. My bike handling skills are pretty limited as it is, and given the wet road conditions I was really careful anytime there was a turn in the road. Heck, sometimes it was scary just passing people on a straight section of road. I'm thinking I could have gone a little faster on the bike if the roads had been dry. However, I might have gone slower on the run if I'd burned more matches on the bike. Who knows?

The weather at Silverman was brutal. With about one-half mile to go on the swim, a cold front arrived. The waves and the spray on the last half mile of the swim slowed me down quite a bit. The killer was getting on the bike in a sleeveless jersey and shorts. The air temperature went down into the 40 or 50 degree F range, it started to rain/sleet on everything, and the winds picked up to 20 mph with gusts to 40 mph. I have never been so cold as I was during the first hour of the bike. It was very scary going downhill at any speed above 20 mph because of the wind and the slick roads, and I was shivering so badly my arms were shaking the entire bike. After an hour or so the weather didn't necessarily become nice, but at least it was less nasty, so I was able to finish the bike. But it sure took a lot of energy out of me, and I more or less gave up on trying for any particular finish time. I was simply looking to finish. Having said that, after T-2 I saw that I only needed to run a 5:20 marathon to finish the race under 15 hours. Even on the Silverman course, I should have been able to do that. But I still couldn't get warm on the run. By the time I hit the 16 mile point, I needed to grab a "space blanket" from one of the aid stations to drape around my shoulders to keep me warm. I'm not sure that I would have finished in 15 hours even if the weather had been ideal, but I know that I would have been faster.

So, what about 2009? OK, I've got three goals. I will "age up" to the M55-59 age group this year. I'm not going to blow away the competition there even if I can go as fast this year as I have in the past. However, while the "best" guys are quite a bit faster than me, the older age group is just a little slower overall. My first goal is to place in the top ten of my age group at the BSLT 70.3. In order to do this, I will almost certainly need to be faster than last year, but given "normal" weather conditions I ought to be able to do this. My second goal is to finish the Silverman in less time than it took this year. This might seem like a "soft" goal, but just finishing the Silverman is pretty challenging. If the weather there is better, and assuming that I do finish, I should be able to go under 15:30. My last goal is to run a sub 21:00 5K. This is not going to help me much when it comes to running 13.1/26.2 miles at BSLT/Silverman, but it's something I want to do. I used to run 3 miles in 21 minutes when I was a cadet at the USAF Academy, and that seemed pretty easy at the time. As recently as 1996 I could run 1.5 miles in less than 9 minutes. OK, I'm older now, but there are plenty of guys in my age group who can run 5K's even faster than 21 minutes. I'll work on this during the next few months. If I can do it I'll do it before the end of May. One way or the other, I won't worry about trying to do this after the end of May. After that, I'll be racing BSLT and ramping up for Silverman.

Three goals for me. Good luck to everyone in 2009!

muffinman

One More Time!

2008-11-30T09:47:00.000-08:00

For a week or so after this year's Silverman, I figured I was finished with long course triathlons. I can't do anything at this distance other than just finish the race. Forget about a "fast" time, finishing on the podium, or even trying to catch someone ahead of me in the race. Throw in the six-hour rides and two-hour runs for training, and I was having a hard time seeing how I was having any fun.

Then I watched the "trailer" for the Silverman video.

http://www.silvermannv.com/press_room/silverman-trailer.php

So once more, I'm heading out to Henderson. Who needs to go fast! This race is so much fun, I'll have a great time just being there.

Time to start training!

muffinman

Silverman

2008-11-15T06:25:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, Nov 9th, 2008, I finished the Silverman triathlon. I didn't "race" the Silverman. I'm not strong enough to race that course. No one signs up for the Silverman thinking, "Gee, that's an easy race. I'll go do it so that I can pencil in another long course triathlon on my resume." People do the Silverman partly because it is a tough race, partly because it is so well run, partly because of the spectacular setting, and mostly because it is a lot of fun! If you go to the Silverman web page, there is an excellent race report under the link titled "SURVIVING THE RACE". It has a lot of information about the course, and some really good pictures showing what it would look like on a sunny day.

http://www.silvermannv.com/

Last Sunday was not a sunny day. There are several threads on the Slowtwitch forums discussing the race last Sunday. If you go there and do a search for "Silverman", you can see what other folks have to say. (Sorry, I can't get the "insert link" to work, but you can copy and paste the following link. Check out "2nd Crack at Silverman". Same guy wrote up his experience this year, with more photos of this year's cloudy weather.)

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/

I arrived in Henderson on Friday for packet pickup and the pre-race dinner. The weather was beautiful. Saturday I hit the pancake breakfast then went out to Lake Mead to drop off my bike. While I was there, I went for a short run. Again, beautiful weather. The weather forecast for Sunday was calling for slightly cooler temperatures and party cloudy skies with a 30% chance of rain. Sounded good for a long course race. I went to the pre-race meeting and there were a few comments about the weather, but still, it didn't sound too bad. I went back to my room, finished grading some chemistry lab reports, and was asleep by ten o'clock.

Sunday morning, up at 3:30, on the shuttle bus at 4:00, arrived at the race start early, stretched out on the carpet in the changing tent, and just relaxed. Once it started to get light outside, I took a peek at the weather. "Hey, this doesn't look too bad! Not too cold, a few clouds (so we won't have to deal with the sun on the last leg of the swim), and almost no wind. Heck, this is going to be great! I was happy that I'd decided to go with my sleeveless wetsuit since the water was almost 70 degrees. It looked like I wouldn't need any "cold weather gear" for the bike either, so I took my gloves, arm warmers, and turtle neck shirt out of my swim-to-bike bag and put them in my dry clothes bag so they wouldn't get wet. The gun went off for the swim right on time at 6:30 and we were off!

The first part of the swim was a piece of cake. The water in Lake Mead is so much cleaner than what we have here in Eastern NM/West TX. You can actually see the other swimmers around you, so I was able to draft off a couple of other swimmers. There was a little chop, but less than what you get at Buffalo Springs most years. I was thinking, "Gosh, I'll probably have a really fast swim time. Maybe I can actually try to "race" today."

And then the cold front arrived.

All that I knew from my position in the water was that suddenly we were swimming through some really big waves. I found out later that a 40 mph gust of wind hit the beach and blew a bunch of stuff over. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees. In the water, we were swimming into three foot waves and blowing spray kicked up by the 20 mph headwind with gusts to 40 mph. I couldn't see the next buoy, so I just started swimming in the general direction of the boat ramp. Eventually another swimmer came up beside me. It looked like she knew where she was going, so I started drafting off her. (And because it was a woman and not a man, I knew she'd stop and ask for directions if we got lost!) Eventually, we got close enough to the boat ramp to see and hear the people standing there, so I knew that I was going to make it. The last half-mile of the swim took 30 minutes. I didn't think I was working that hard, it's just that I was going so slowly. The funny thing was once my feet hit the sandy beach, my legs were absolutely rubber. I couldn't stand up for about 20 seconds. I had never had this happen before, and it was more funny than alarming.

Fellow Outlaw Paul was in the changing tent. We congratulated each other on surviving the swim. At this point, I was really questioning my decision to get rid of my cold weather gear. Was a sleeveless Outlaw jersey and trishorts going to be enough? But I figured I'd warm up once I got going on the bike. As soon as you leave T-1, you have a pretty good one-mile climb from the boat ramp to the main highway. Paul and I rode together for a while, and I did start to feel comfortably warm. I said goodbye to Paul and settled in for what I figured to be a seven-hour ride.

And then it started to rain. And sleet. And the wind kept blowing, and gusting. It's one thing to stay warm without adequate clothing if it's cold. It's impossible when you're wet and you're dealing with wind. I was really getting cold. The bike course at Silverman has (so I've read) 11,000 feet of climbing. But you get to go downhill quite a bit too. Not that this makes up for the time lost climbing, but at least it's something. However, given the slick roads and gusting crosswinds, it was all most of us could do to go downhill at 10-15 mph without going off into the ditch. Some riders did go off the road, and apparently one rider crashed hard enough that he had to be medevaced off the course. I started thinking about how much time I had until the bike cutoff, and pretty much gave up on having any kind of fast time.

After an hour or so, the worst of the storm front had passed. It was still cold, it would occasionally rain, and it was mostly cloudy. However, I was no longer shivering uncontrollably and I could think about things other than how cold I was. I was grabbing a gel at each of the aid stations, but one time I couldn't get it open because my hands were so cold. About 10 miles before the bike turn around, Andy Cope (from Mesa, AZ) caught up to me. He had been in the water for two hours, and he was happy to be out on the bike. We saw Paul and then George Ferland (from Artesia, NM) heading back in on the bike. They had almost a 20-mile lead on us. Andy took off, but the thought of getting to the turn around picked up my spirits. The turn around comes at 51 miles, and then at 60 miles you hit the longest climb of the day. Three miles long and about 1000 feet of climbing, it takes a lot out of you. After that, it was 30 miles of more climbing and headwinds before you hit the "Three Sisters". These are three short but steep (18%) hills on a bike path. Everyone at Silverman talks about them, most people with some degree of trepidation. I'm not a very strong climber, but these hills don't bother me too much. Sure, they're steep, and the fact that you've already done a pretty tough 93-mile ride makes them even tougher, but I can climb them slowly out of the saddle in a 39x25 gear without blowing up. Some folks do walk up them, though. After I'd made it up the last "Sister", I looked over my shoulder to see how much I'd climbed. I saw a really neat rainbow (we still had occasional rain showers) and I thought that maybe this was a sign that the rest of the day would go well. Not so fast. I settled back onto my saddle and started pedalling and then suddenly I started to cramp in my left quad. I started to favor the left quad and my right hammy started to cramp. Whoa, OK, ease up on the right side, and then my left glute started to cramp. Back and forth, back and forth, for the next couple minutes I was just fighting off cramps. Guess the Three Sisters had gotten a piece of me after all. Once the cramping went away, I figured I could pretty much coast into T-2, but then I started to get some tendinitis in my right knee. Wow, I've still got to run 26.2 miles. This could get ugly.

In the changing tent I commiserated with another competitor. We were both in "survival mode" by then, but just finishing this race is not so bad. I headed out on the run, knowing from doing the Half Silverman that the first mile is downhill and that I wouldn't be able to keep the same pace for the rest of the run. Still, it gives you hope that you'll have a good run when you go through the first mile in eight minutes. Then you hit a two-mile climb, and reality sets in. I wasn't worried about finishing before the cutoff at midnight, but I knew I was going to be slow. The run course doubles back on itself on a few legs and you run two laps, so you get to see a lot of people. I saw Paul, George, and Andy a couple of times. Paul and George were having pretty good races, and Andy was having a good run. Me? I was sampling whatever they had to eat and drink at each of the aid stations. Every now and then I'd feel the tendinitis and I knew even if I felt like running faster I couldn't. By the time I started the second lap it was dark. And then it really got cold. I wasn't moving fast enough to stay warm. A lot of folks were "running" with Mylar "space blankets" draped over their shoulders. I thought that looked pretty silly, but at the 18-mile point I asked for a blanket. It helped, especially on the lonely and dark leg down to the turn-around at the 20-mile point. By the time I made it to the 23-mile point I'd warmed up enough that I figured I could finish without the blanket. (I also didn't want to look too stupid running with a blanket through the Green Valley Ranch Station outdoor shopping district with a space blanket. Of course, I looked pretty stupid running in a sleeveless jersey and shorts anyway.) I crossed the line in 15:30:09. Slow, but I was a "Silverman Finisher".

This is a way cool race and I can't recommend it highly enough. The race director really has his stuff together. There are tons of volunteers, and they do an outstanding job. The schwag bag is the best you'll ever get. Dave Scott and Chris McCormack have been there the past two years signing autographs, telling funny stories, and racing the Half Silverman (although Dave didn't race this year). The course, from the swim in Lake Mead to the spectacular bike to the hilly run is challenging but lots of fun. You won't set a PR here (except for folks like Paul and George who did this as their first ever long course triathlon), but you'll enjoy it more than any other race you do.

muffinman

Long, Slow Run

2008-10-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, I missed posting anything last month. I did two triathlons, the Cotton Country Sprint in Levelland, TX, and the Elephant Man in Elephant Butte, NM. The Cotton Country Sprint is a small race that I have done every year since it first started in 2002. The first few years they only had about 50 people show up. The numbers have steadily climbed since 2005, and this year they had 101 individuals and five relay teams. I had my fastest time ever this year, and that was good enough for third place in my age group. This was just the second year for the Elephant Man. It is my favorite race in the SWCS. Intermediate distance, spectacular scenery, open water swimming, tough bike course, and tough run, what's not to like! My swim and bike times were just average this year, but I had a really good bike. The hills make it tough, especially for a feeble climber like me, but I averaged 22 mph. I passed four guys in my age group during the bike, and none of them caught me on the run, so I managed to win my age group.

My big event recently was yesterday's 50 K trail run in Palo Duro Canyon, TX. I had never done a 50 K run before, and I had never done a trail run. Heck, we don't even have "trails" here in Clovis, unless you count the caliche clay roads. But Myles Pilgrim suggested that it would be good training for IMAZ/Silverman next month, and I figured I need a long run once a week anyway, so why not go and do the race!

Never having done one of these, I didn't really know what I was up against. I figured that my "open" marathon time of four hours should allow me to easily coast around a 50 K in less than six hours. Things didn't work out that way from the very start. In the first place, they started the race about 45 minutes prior to sunrise. I think this was partly to avoid having the 50 mile participants (the real gluttons for punishment) finish in the dark, and it allowed all of us a chance to complete at least part of our runs before the heat of the day. However, it was dark when we started. Throw in about 200 runners on a single track trail, and I ended up walking in the single-file train that everyone ended up in for the first two miles. Eventually, the 50 mile runners split off from the 50 K runners about the same time it got light enough to run without a flashlight. After that, I was never held up by anyone else.

However, running on the Palo Duro Canyon trails wasn't easy. I thought "trail running" would involve some wide pathways through a forest with pine needles cushioning your stride. But the Palo Duro trails were mostly single track, hard as concrete dirt/rock (with a few patches of sticky mud that you had to run off to the side of the trail/jump over to avoid), with pot holes and boulders thrown in along with some short stretches of steep climbs/descents. I'm sure the "trail runners" didn't give it a second thought, but for a "road runner" like me, it was pretty tough. I downloaded my Garmin, and I didn't run a single 10-minute mile! My fastest mile was a 10:02, and my average pace was 12:18. My total time was 6:19 on my Garmin, but that doesn't include the time that I spent standing around at the aid stations/porta potty. I didn't look at the clock when I finished, but it must have been about 6:30.

I thought it was a lot harder than running a "road" marathon. You really need some leg strength to do one of these. There is a lot of "starting/stopping" as you go up/down/left/right on the trails, and you don't have much chance to get into a mindless straight ahead run. But it was a lot of fun. Everyone running the race (at least from my MOP position) seemed pretty low key, and the organization and volunteers were great. And they had some gooey "date bars" at all of the aid stations that beat the heck out of energy bars/gels.

Wait 'till next year!

muffinman

Outlaw Month

2008-08-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

August was a good month for the NM Outlaws.

http://www.outlawstriathlon.com/

The NM Club Championship was held on August 9th at the Socorro Chile Harvest Triathlon. We were back trying for a three-peat. I wouldn't say that any of us are what you would consider "elite triathletes". However, for the Club Championship it's important to have a lot of people there. If you can get enough podium spots in enough age groups, you'll do OK.

The Outlaws had 27 members show up for the race. I'm pretty sure none of the other clubs matched this. Although our best overall male, Paul Gutierrez, only finished "13th overall male" and our best overall female, Maria Ladd, only finished "4th overall female", we had a lot of folks finish on the podium in their age groups. The three-peat was in the bag.

Maria, Miguel Sanchez, John Leroy, Karen Williams, and I all won our respective groups. Neil Galvez, Jamie Prochno, Mark McKenzie, Hartley Wess, Carole Cook, and Misty Pilgrim all came in second. Paul Zetocha picked up a third place finish. And the rest of the Outlaws, Jon Pilgrim, Courtney Benefiel, Michael Loiselle, Nick Pena, Paul Gutierrez, Michael Montoya, Tim Chavez, Brian Pilgrim, Roger Senn, Orlando Dow, Debby Casson, Guido Kemp, Greg Southard, Naomi Finson, and Debi Wess all finished the race. I'm not sure how the scoring system works, but it does make a difference whether you finish the race or not. And it's always pretty neat to see how much support the Outlaws give each other, whether it's a training ride, a sprint triathlon, or an Ironman.

Last Saturday, Aug 23rd, ten Outlaws showed up at Bottomless State park for the F-1 Triathlon. This is a really neat race. It's the only "draft legal" triathlon that I ever do. I hate it when I see people drafting in a race where drafting isn't allowed. But it's cool to get into a paceline at a race where it's perfectly legal.
(I guess it's a little like driving a car. I hate to see people driving 50 mph in a residential area, but I don't have any problems driving 75 mph on an interstate highway as long as the speed limit is posted at 75 mph.) At this race, drafting is not always a big deal for most of the participants. You do two 400 meter swims to start the race. Then, after you jump on your bike, you have a pretty good hill to climb to get on top of the mesa. And the field at this race is usually pretty small. They normally have less than 50 people there, and this year there were only 34 participants. This is a shame because the race director puts on such a good event and it's one of the better venues for triathlon in the West Texas/Eastern NM area. Anyway, between the swim, the first hill, and the small field, a lot of people end up riding the bike legs by themselves. This year, I managed to catch up to Mark McKenzie on the first bike loop. He and I managed to do some work together, along with a couple of random guys who really didn't take many pulls. It probably saved us a little time, but not much.

After the first bike loop, you go through transition and head out on a 4 km run. I always try to save something during this run, because you have another bike loop and another 4 km run to go. I actually managed a reasonably fast run this year. Then it's back on the bike for the second bike loop. This time, Mark and I got together pretty quickly. We worked pretty well together and managed to catch fellow Outlaw Miguel. Off in the distance in front of us, we could see yet another Outlaw, the uber biker Mark Trejtnar. It took a fair amount of work, but we managed to catch Mark. We were really flying the last few miles on the bike. I wouldn't say it was a textbook example of a team time trial, but we worked pretty well together. I'm sure it saved me at least a minute on the second bike leg, and all of us gained at least some time.

The final run leg is always a real slog for me. I'm always pretty toasted by then, and it's hard to go fast at all. I had a pretty good run this year, and overall it was my fastest ever race at this event. I was 6th overall, right behind Mark T, and just ahead of Mark M and Miguel. Outlaw Naomi Finson was the overall female winner. Paul Zetocha finished in the top 10, Michael Giudicissi and Greg Southard were in the top 20, and Hartley Wess and Orlando Dow rounded out the field for the Outlaws. As much fun as the race was the post-race lunch at Farley's. It was great to hang out with everyone over a burger and brew.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that on the same day we were doing the F-1 Tri, the fearless leader of the Outlaws, Brian Pilgrim did a 100 mile run at the Lean Horse Race up in South Dakota. (And it actually takes more than one day to do this run.) This is an event/distance that I can positively say I will never attempt. A 100 mile month is a big deal for me. Kudos to Brian for finishing this race!

Tomorrow I'm off to the Turtle Marathon in Roswell. I get in a "long run" every week as part of my Silverman training, and I figure at this race I won't have to carry my own water and food. Then I get to do two more fun races, the Cotton Country Sprint tri and the Elephant Man tri at the end of September.

Wow, is this a fun life or what!

muffinman

Bottomless

2008-07-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

Saturday (7/12/08) was the 25th edition of the Bottomless Tri. The race is held at Bottomless State Park just outside Roswell, NM. It's a short sprint tri (400 m swim/13 km bike/4 km run). Even though it's short, it's a real workout. Everyone is going all out and you do have a short steep climb coming out of T-1. It's one of the few races that I can finish in less than one hour, and the overall winner will finish in less than 50 minutes.

I car pooled down to Roswell with fellow Outlaw Willy Wonka and a couple of other Clovis triathletes. One of the things I like about this race is they don't start the race until 8:30 in the morning. It's only a two hour drive from Clovis, so we don't need to leave here until 5:00. Sure beats having to drive 5-6 hours to get to some of the races, and you can almost get a complete night's sleep.

It was sunny, fairly warm, and humid. Not Atlanta humid, but pretty sticky for New Mexico. People often feel they aren't sweating because any sweat in New Mexico normally evaporates as fast as it appears. But I was sweating on Saturday.

The swim went off in three waves. Women, young guys, then old guys. I was in the old guy wave. Bottomless Lake is fairly brackish, but it's about as clear as you get in Eastern New Mexico/West Texas unless you are swimming in a pool. I had a pretty fast swim, but I forgot to hit the lap timer on my watch until I got to my bike in T-1. I didn't have a very fast T-1. I cannot run without socks unless I want to get blisters. Although I can bike in bare feet, it's either put socks on during T-1 or put them on in T-2. So I just put them on in T-1. This time, it took forever to get my right sock on. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just clumsy, I guess.

I came out of the water just behind fellow Outlaw Bones and just ahead of Stitch. By the time I left T-1, Bones was well up the road, and Stitch was a few seconds in front of me. I had a fast bike ride and I caught up to Stitch after 2-3 miles. Then I passed Miguel, yet another Outlaw, with about 3 miles to go on the bike. I didn't quite catch Bones on the bike, and he beat me out of T-2.

I was going OK on the run, but not fast enough to hold off Stitch who caught and passed me just after the turn-around. I couldn't keep up with Stitch, and I was never going to catch Bones. It looked to me like I was all alone with about a quarter mile to go. One of my fellow Clovites was just getting started on the run and he gave me a shout out, followed by a shout out for Mark Balsiger just a few seconds later. Wow, how did Mark manage to catch up to me? First of all, Mark is four years older than me, and he's a lot faster on the bike and run. However, if there is a swim, I can sometimes build enough of a lead there to hold him off. Secondly, Mark (along with Flip Lyle) is a key player in organizing and keeping the SWCS going. He's a swell guy, and I certainly don't hold any animosity towards him. But hey, this was a race! I tried to pick up my pace, and I was soon at my redline. Just as I turned the corner with 50 meters or so to go to the finish, I thought I was going to get sick to my stomach. I managed to hold on (and I think Mark was letting up) to finish just ahead of Mark, and then I walked over to the bushes and got sick.

It wasn't my fastest race there, but I was within one minute of my fastest race in 2004. And in 2004 my swim was about one minute faster than Saturday. The swim turn around buoy placement is fairly arbitrary at Bottomless, which makes year-to-year comparisons difficult, but it makes no difference to the outcome of a given race.

Post race, a bunch of the Outlaws met up at Farleys for lunch. I'm not sure Lance Armstrong would approve of our post race appetizer of Rabbit Droppings. Think deep fried cheese balls with Jalepeno peppers. Anyway, lunch was a great time to meet some new Outlaws and to chat with everyone there.

The same folks who put on the Bottomless Tri put on the "F-1 Tri" at the same location on Aug 23rd. This is a "draft legal" race. Although it really burns me up to see people drafting in races where it isn't legal, it's a lot of fun to do this race once a year. The past two years, we have had a couple of good "Team Time Trial" pacelines going with several Outlaws. This year at the Bottomless Tri, we could have had four or five Outlaws in a paceline on the bike. We didn't do this on Saturday, but wait until August!

muffinman

BSLT 70.3

2008-07-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

Sunday (6/29/08) was the BSLT 70.3, formerly known as the Buffalo Springs Half Ironman. I was the cyclist/runner on a relay team for three races (2002-2004) and then I did the race "solo" twice (2005-2006). Last year I did the Tri-Raider sprint which they run on the same day in the same location. Mike and Marti Greer are the race directors for both of these races plus a few others. They do a super job putting their races together.

http://www.buffalospringslaketriathlon.com/home.php

You can usually count on Lubbock, TX, being hot, dry, and sunny in the last week of June. It certainly has been every other year I was there. The sun and the heat take a lot out of me. Throw in the hills on the bike, and especially the hills on the run, and this is a tough race. They have slots for Kona and Clearwater, so you get some of the heavy hitters from all over the United States showing up. I just look for a reasonable time and hope to finish in the top half of my age group.

This year, it was cool (temperatures in the 60's/low 70's), with gray skies, lightning in the distance, winds gusting to 25 mph, and rain. If I had been the race director, I would have been worried about having 1000 triathletes riding bikes on wet and slippery roads getting blown around by the wind. If Mike and Marti ever considered cancelling the race, I never heard about it. Other than a delay because people were late getting parked and down the hill to the transition area, everything went off without a hitch. Sure beat my experience at the USAT Age Group Championships in Kansas City in 2005 where they cancelled the race because of wet roads.

The swim starts in a small cove. There is no way to have a mass start, so everyone goes off in waves of 100-200 or so swimmers. This year, some of the pro's figured out you could run through the shallow water on the south shore of the cove rather than starting your swim from the middle of the cove. This saved them about 100 meters of swimming. Sure enough, the age groupers saw this so every wave had some "runners" at the start of the swim. I didn't want to step on something in my bare feet, so I started swimming from the middle of the cove. I could watch the "runners" and except for the few "runners" at the front of the group, most of them were bunched up behind the leaders so they were just walking. I don't think it cost me more than 30 seconds, and probably less.

The roads were dry at the start of the bike, but then a bunch of showers started coming through. Along with the wind, it made the bike course extra difficult. Some of the corners were really slick. In particular, you come down two hills with some fairly sharp curves after the second and third turn-arounds, and everyone that I saw was sitting up riding the brakes coming down these two hills. I saw one guy who had failed to make one of the 90-degree turns from one road to the next. The EMT's were already working on him, but he had road rash from his knee to his arm pit. I had a fairly slow bike, but I never went down.

The slow bike meant that I had quite a bit left in the tank for the run. It was still pretty cool and the sky was still overcast, so I was able to get in a pretty good run. I had never been able to run a sub-2-hour run on a half IM, but this time I made it in 1:56 and change. That doesn't sound very fast, but given the three hills on the Buffalo Springs run, I was pretty pleased.

I read on Iron "Geekgirl" Misty's blog that races in Texas always start with a prayer and end with beer.

http://athenadiaries.blogspot.com/

Now that I think about it, in my experience that has been a true statement. Sure enough, this race started not only with a Christian prayer, we also had a Native American prayer (although it might have been a plea for rain). At the finish, the local Miller beer distributor was passing out free beer.

Great race, gutsy race directors, and free beer. What a day!

muffinman

Support Your Local Race

2008-06-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

I'll swing by the slowtwitch.com site now and then to see what people are saying on its forum page. I came across a discussion today under the title "Triathlon Seems To suck right Now". (Sorry, I can't figure out how to copy the entire link.)

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/

We all want to rant about different things at some point. There are several ideas coming out of this slowtwitch forum thread. The way I read it, many people are not happy with their experience at some of the "big" races. The entry fees are high, it's no fun having to travel to get to the race, and then there is the problem of people drafting on the bike during the race.

Most of us have dealt with these and other issues at some of the "big" races. I think $500 is a lot of money to pay for an "M-dot" IM and now it's about $250 for an "M-dot" 70.3 race. Some of the big races that aren't under the "M-dot" banner (Escape From Alcatraz, Boulder Peak, etc.) are pretty spendy these days. I don't see the price of gasoline coming down, and good luck dealing with the commercial airlines these days. As far a drafting is concerned, if you put 1000 plus people on the same course at places like Clearwater or SOMA, you are setting the stage for a draft fest.

I have some thoughts on these issues. Among other things, the folks at WTC and NAS are well within their rights to charge $500 for races that fill up within hours of the time that registration opens. If plenty of people are willing to pay that much money, WTC and NAS would be foolish to charge less. Same thing for races like Escape From Alcatraz.

If you are willing to pay $500 for a race, then $4.00 (and even more) for a gallon of gasoline might not seem too bad. Similarly, $15 per bag and $100 for a bike box (one way) on an airline flight (that already costs twice as much as it did a couple of years ago) is another cost that you are willing to suck up.

Drafting (and anyone who blatantly drafts) is cheating and you might think that everyone in a race would be ashamed to draft. However, I'm afraid you will never eliminate it on crowded courses, especially the flat crowded courses. Look at your average citizen. Is he/she upset about baseball players on steroids? What do they think about football coaches who illegally video tape an opposing team? How many cycling fans are willing to support their favorite cyclist who failed a drug test? We live in a country where our government argues that water boarding isn't torture. Is it any wonder that some people feel that drafting in a triathlon is not a big deal?

Is there a solution? Some of the posters on the slowtwitch forum made comments to the effect that they're done with the "big" races. From now on, they're just going to enjoy a few of their local races. I'm not completely put off by the "big" races, at least not yet. I'm looking forward to the BSLT 70.3 in two weeks, but it's just a two hour car drive from my house. However, I did sign up for the Silverman this year, as opposed to IMAZ. Quite a few of the NM Outlaws are going to IMAZ, and they'll have a good time at that race. But I've done IMAZ (and the Half-Silverman) before, and while the Silverman only has about one-tenth as many people, I enjoyed it a lot more. What I appreciate even more are the small "local" races. There are at least eight races within a two hour drive from my house (which is pretty amazing given the sparse population density in West Texas/Eastern NM). They cost $40-$50 to enter, you can drive there in the morning, race, and be home by mid-afternoon. They only attract 100-200 people, they don't put on an expo, and there are no Kona slots at stake, but they're a lot of fun. Thank goodness for these races and for the directors who put them on.

See you at the races!

muffinman

Milkman

2008-06-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 7th, was the 24th Annual Milkman Triathlon. Wow, 24 years. What were you doing in 1985? This is a fun race and pretty popular with the New Mexico and West Texas triathletes. It's in the small town of Dexter, about 15 miles south of Roswell (and the Alien Museum). If you find yourself in the area on the first weekend in June, you should give this race a go.

The swim is in Lake Van. I don't know who "Van" was, and I sure don't know why it's called a lake. More like a large pond. The water is never more than four or five feet deep, it's pretty murky, and the bottom of the lake is covered in about six inches of mud. In spite of that, it's a pretty good swim. They stretch a rope with buoys 250 meters from the shore, so you get the same length swim every year. The water seems clean enough and it provides a nice backdrop to the race venue. The water temperature is always in the low 70's for the race, so wetsuits are optional. The "strong swimmers" usually swim without wetsuits. For a more feeble swimmer like myself, I've found that I'm about one minute faster with a wetsuit than I am without one. (9:15 vs 10:15 for the 500 meters.) I went with the neoprene this year, and sure enough I swam 9:15.

The transition area is right next to the lake. It takes me an extra 15 seconds to peel off my wetsuit, but it's still a net plus for me. The 20K (12.4 mile) bike course is an out and back on a sparsely traveled county highway. The road surface varies from "kind of rough chip seal" to "pretty bouncy patched potholes chip seal". A lot of people run with lower tire pressures on this course. There is also one cattle guard on the course. (Think twenty parallel railroad tracks with about two inches of spacing between the rails.) In previous years they have covered this with sheets of plywood. This year it was uncovered, which was no big deal. A lot of us deal with cattle guards on our training rides, and they're no worse than crossing railroad tracks. Just cross them at a 90 degree angle. This year there was a 20 mph wind from the south. Great when we were heading north on the way out, not so great when we were heading south on the way back. I was happy that I was not quite one minute slower than last year.

I needed to run a 22 minute 5K if I was going to match last year's overall time. Back in the day, that would have been no problem. Even now, I could have managed this if that was the only thing I was doing on the day. However, after pushing through the headwinds on the bike, I was never going to finish the run in 22 minutes. The run is interesting. You start off on the road around the lake, then run some dirt and grass trails for a couple of miles, then finish on the road around the lake. The last 100 meters is across a grass field to the finish line. I finished the run in 23:45, which left me about one minute slower overall than last year. Not bad considering the wind on the bike!

This race is part of the "Best of the US" series. The overall male winner was Clay Moseley, who is pretty much the alpha-male among New Mexico triathletes. Uber biker Seth Wilkie was less than five seconds behind Clay. Third, fourth, and fifth places belonged to some "old guys", 48 year old Bobby Gonzales, 51 year old Perry Toles, and 46 year old Jeff Johnson. These "old guys" were able to finish in front of some of the young guns from the local area including Albert Lugo, Jason Atkinson, and Chance Payton. The top three females were Deborah Kidd, Gretchen McElroy, and 50 year old Tamsen Schurman. Pretty impressive, and it shows how you can still be competitive in "middle age"!

This race also recognizes the "First Time Triathletes" by bringing them up to the awards podium and giving them a Milkman coffee cup. I didn't count, but there were more than 20 first timers (among a total of 110 male and 63 female individuals) at this race. They also get quite a few relay teams participating. This year there were 14 relay teams. It's things like this that help grow and maintain interest in triathlon.

Finally, they present the Pegye Jann Marshall Spirit Award at this race. She was an active supporter of multisport who passed away several years ago. People who are presented with this award have made some significant contribution to multisport. This year's winner was Flip Lyle. If you have participated in any of the Southwest Challenge Series races during the past 20 or so years, you know who he is. He pretty much created the series and he is the glue that has held it together for the 20 or so years that it has been around. He has received other recognition from the Guinness Book of Records and from USAT, and it was nice to see him win this award.

Less than three weeks until Buffalo Springs!

muffinman

I Can't Fight This Feeling

2008-05-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

This was a great weekend. Dinner with fellow Outlaws Mark, Naomi, Cody and his family at Orlando's. My favorite race on the SWCS schedule, and I still got the grass cut on Sunday after the race.

I was standing in the transition area before the race looking at the swim course for this weekend's Buffman and Squeaky triathlon. This race is at the same location as the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon 70.3 (the race formerly know as the Buffalo Springs Half Ironman). The swim for both is in Buffalo Springs Lake (go figure). It's not a huge lake, and the race organizers (Mike and Marti Greer, who really do a super job with their races) have to squeeze to get a 1.2-mile swim course laid out within the confines of the lake. The Buff&Squeak (named after the Greer's two dogs) is an "intermediate" distance race, so they only need a 1500 meter course. I've done Buff&Squeak every year since they started doing it, including 2004 when it was the M&M tri. I've done the Buff Springs half twice by myself, and I've been there as part of a relay team (or for the Tri-Raider sprint that is held on the same day as the Half Ironman) four other times. Anyway, the placement of the buoys for this year's 1500 meter course looked a lot like the placement for the 1.2-mile course. Now, everyone has to swim the same course, so it really doesn't matter if it's a little long or short. But I'm one of those people who views any swim as the necessary evil that needs to be taken care of before you are allowed to bike and run.

I started the swim pretty conservatively, not wanting a repeat of the panic attack that gripped me at Ransom Canyon two weeks ago. No problems this time. You swim eastbound (thank goodness the sun was already pretty far above the horizon) for a few hundred meters, then north for a few hundred meters, and then you set out on the long westbound leg that skirts the north shore of the lake. This leg always seems long to me, and yesterday it really seemed long. I should probably concentrate on my stroke or something while I'm swimming, but mostly my mind just wanders. I was thinking, "Good grief, this swim is taking forever. It's time to bring this ship into the shore, and throw away the oars forever."

Ah, 1985, REO Speedwagon. 24 years on, and this song still sounds good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Fb8XbpWMM&NR=1

And how about that hair!

Maybe I would race faster if I could get a different kind of song stuck in my head. But REO Speedwagon seemed to do the trick yesterday. It was my slowest "1500 meter" wetsuit swim ever, but I did manage to match my Buff Springs 1.2-mile time. (Hmmmm....) I had my fastest bike ever at this race, and I was only a few seconds off my fastest run time there.

In addition to Mark, Naomi, and Cody, fellow Outlaws Amy and Helen also did the race. Mark finished 20th overall. Amy almost caught up to Cody and me, and she finished as the 4th place overall woman. She and Naomi were second in their age groups, I was third, and Mark, Cody, and Helen were just off the podium in their super competitive age groups. Overall, a great race and a great time.

muffinman

Power of Suggestion

2008-05-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend (May 4th) I did the Ransom Canyon triathlon. This is one of those small local races that attracts about 120 people each year. I have done this race every year since 2002. In fact, 2002 was the first year they held the race, and it was the first time I did a triathlon (other than being part of a relay team in a couple of other races). Mike and Marti Greer put the Ransom Canyon tri together. They also put on the Buffman and Squeaky Oly distance race and the Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3. I think Mike was doing triathlons before Dave Scott was even born, and their races are super well organized and very athlete friendly. All of these races are just outside Lubbock, Texas. Now Lubbock isn't exactly Orlando, Florida, (or Branson, Missouri) when it comes to tourist attractions, but it's only a two hour drive from my house. I really like these races.

The swim is in Ransom Canyon Lake. They have a small "party island" connected to the shore by a narrow causeway. It's supposed to be a 500 meter swim, but the geography of the island dictates the minimum distance. I think they may have had the buoys in very close to the shoreline a few years ago, but the last three years they have had the buoys farther out in the water and I'm guessing the swim is about 600 meters. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the longer swim. Obviously everyone swims the same distance, and it seems to give more balance to the swim leg of this "sprint distance" race.

The lake is spring fed, and it never gets really warm. This year, we've had a pretty cool spring, and the lake was colder than I ever remember. Mike said it was 62 degrees, but that was a bit of wishful thinking. I grew up in western New York state, and I can still remember swimming in the Finger Lakes. 62 degrees was not too bad there, and 70 degrees was positively balmy. Anyway, most of us didn't get into the water until just prior to the start of the race. The ones who had gotten in earlier were shivering and chattering their teeth. I was standing next to Mark Balsiger and Flip Lyle (who have done a few thousand races between the two of them). Flip said something to the effect, "You know, when the water is this cold, a lot of people will have panic attacks." I'm thinking, sure Flip, a lot of these newbies will probably struggle. But this isn't my first time at the dance, and I've done the Harvest Moon swim. That was cold! This can't be any worse.

So the gun goes off, and I'm swimming reasonably hard to the first buoy that is 50-100 meters from the dock. You have to make a 90-degree turn at this buoy, and with 120 people in a fairly small area, it can get pretty crowded. I felt OK, but a 15-20 mph wind was blowing a small chop into my face. That messed up a couple of my breaths. Just as I reached the buoy, I was kicked in the head by another swimmer. It wasn't enough to knock me out, but it was as hard a kick as I've ever had. I paddled around the buoy, trying to get back into a rhythm, and then I thought about what Flip had said. Sure enough, as soon as I put my face into the water, panic attack! Whoa, how can this be? I can swim, I've been in colder water before, and I'm only 100 meters into this swim. But I couldn't breathe. I ended up sculling water on my back for about a minute in order to get myself under control. I noticed about 20 other swimmers doing the same thing (or doing breast stroke). For a few seconds, I wondered if I would ever finish the swim. And then, everything was back to normal and off I went. I ended up taking about two minutes more to finish the swim this year compared to last year (when I had a really good swim), and about one minute more compared to two years ago. Now, if Flip had never mentioned "panic attack".......

My bike leg went really well considering the wind. It was really fun coming back with a tailwind and hitting 45 mph going down Yellow House Canyon. I had a good run too, and ended up first in my age group. Next time I do a swim in cold water, I'm getting in to do some warm up swimming and I won't even think about Flip and panic attacks. Don't think about panic attacks. Don't think about them! Stop thinking about them!!! Quit thinking about panic attacks right now!!!!!

muffinman

I Rant

2008-04-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

The stars must be aligned. Lately, I've been reading threads about the Kona lottery. Some thoughts to the effect that the current system is unfair. "I've been doing triathlons for 20 years. I have never been picked for the lottery, but you get people who've never done a single race who win a lottery slot. And then there are the triathletes who are good enough to win their age group at a qualifying race but they enter and win a lottery slot. It's not fair!"

Then there was the DNF rate at IMAZ (17%). "You should have to qualify before you are ever allowed to sign up for an Ironman. In fact, the cut off time needs to be lowered to less than 15 hours so that we don't get these folks who are just trying to fill a square on their resume."

But what really brought things to a head was the recent issue of US Weekly magazine. On one page they were reporting on Andy Baldwin's romantic relationship with Marla Maples. http://www.realitytvscoop.com/tags/andy-baldwin/ On the next page, they had the latest update from Trista and Ryan Sutter. Now, I don't envy any of these people, but I don't hate them either. But there are triathletes who get upset that Andy and Ryan were able to race at Kona.

Get over it. Unless you're a pro, triathlon is just a game. Some of the posts on different threads equate triathlon (and Ironman races, especially Kona) as some kind of sacred religious event, not to be sullied by the unclean masses. "I train for 20 hours a week. I know what it takes to be an Ironman. Kona is special. You can't let just anyone go there! I'm not quite fast enough to make it there by qualifying, but they should save the lottery slots for someone like me. No one who has never done an IM race (and preferably no one who hasn't finished in less than 12 hours) should ever be allowed to sign up for the lottery. And stop letting these grade-B celebrities entry into Kona. They don't deserve it!"

I don't have a problem with anyone plunking down some money to enter the Kona lottery (or to get a Powerball ticket). Heck, the chances of winning either are pretty slim, and everyone knows this. If someone who is fast enough to qualify for Kona (by winning their age group at IMAZ for instance) wins a lottery slot, good for them! They can let their slot roll down at the IMAZ awards ceremony.

And call me cheesy, but it's fine with me if a few "celebrities" get invited to Kona every year. I know your average TV viewer has never heard of Chris McCormack, but they might know Andy Baldwin. (Andy finished Kona 2006 in 9:45, and Ryan Sutter finished Kona 2004 in 11:38. I don't know how many triathletes who didn't get a lottery slot those years would have gone any faster.) Heck, if Paris Hilton and Justin Timberlake were to go to Kona this year, it would get a lot of people interested in triathlon. Maybe we could get a few more folks off the sofa and out on the roads biking and running.

If I ever get the opportunity to race at Kona, I'll jump at the chance. I know just getting registered for an "M-dot" Ironman race in North America is difficult. I think it's a good thing that so many people, including some "average Joe's and Jill's" want to get the IM experience. I'm happy with the current system. If I never make it to Kona, I won't be miserable. And there are plenty of "non-M-dot" iron distance races that would be happy to have you there.

See you at this year's Silverman.

muffinman

Why Do You Race?

2008-03-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll start with a funny story I heard on NPR while driving to today's race (the Pecos Valley Stampede 1/2-Marathon in Roswell, NM).

A female author was telling the story about taking her 3-year-old son to the YMCA for swim lessons. After the lesson, she was getting dressed in the locker room when her son suddenly darted out the door of the locker room. She was stark naked, and the towels at the "Y" weren't big enough to cover her completely. As she dashed out the door into the lobby to catch up to her young son, she wondered, "Should I cover my top or bottom?" She decided to cover her top and she caught up to her son after running (apparently bottomless) through the front lobby of the "Y" just as her son was going through the open doors to an elevator. The next week she asked the other moms in "playgroup" what they would have covered. Some said "top", some said "bottom", but the clever response was the woman who said, "I would have covered my face!"

On to today's race. As I was driving to Roswell, I thought, "I really enjoy working out. Training is a lot of fun. Do I really need to go to races? Why not simply stay home and do my own run?" At the start of the race, it was only 41 degrees, and it didn't get above 49 degrees before the end of the race. I thought it was pretty cold, but it turned out to be just right for a long run. A fellow triathlete in my age-group from the SWCS (Jim Humphreys) was there and he's a much faster runner than I am. So I knew I was shooting for second place. I ran the first mile faster than planned (7:45) and then settled into a comfortable 8:10 pace. The course is an out and back, and going into the turn-around it looked like there were three other "old guys" (in addition to Jim) who were 1-2 minutes in front of me. I felt really good on the way back, initially running some 8:00 minute miles and finishing with three 7:40 miles. I managed to catch the three "old guys" and finished with my fastest 1/2-marathon ever (1:45:50). OK, I haven't done many 1/2-marathons, and most of the ones that I have done have been the last leg of a 1/2-IM, but I was pretty pleased. I did finish second (behind Jim) in the 50-59 age group.

Which brings me to my point. Racing is more fun than training. It was fun to see Jim and some of the other folks from the SWCS that I only see when I'm at a race. And it's great to see the effect of even a small taper along with some adrenaline on your performance. Sometimes it's hard for me to keep an 8:00 per mile pace on a 5k training run. Most of my long runs are 9-10:00 minute per mile slogs. It was pretty cool to see how (relatively) fast I could go today. I would never do this in training. It would hurt too much, and the pay back doesn't seem to be there. But I can get "up" for a race. I feel so pumped today. I'm sure this week's training will be more fun than it would have been if I had just slogged my way through another weekend's long bike/long run.

Then there is all of the time listening to NPR while driving to and from the race. Along with the author talking about towels at the "Y", they had people talking about "what makes me think of Spring". It was nice and sunny (and warmer) on the drive home. I was thinking about how my brother, who played the organ for our church when we were in high school, would always play the "Meditation from Thais" from an opera by Massenet on one of the first Sundays in Spring. Winter lasted forever in Western New York State, but that piece was a sign that Spring was finally here.

I don't miss Winter in New York. I still enjoy listening to recordings of this piece.

muffinman

Stealth Du

2008-03-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

We had six Outlaws at today's (Mar 16th) Stealth Du. (Naomi and Mr. T, Karen Williams, Cody, Greg Southard, and me.) This was easily the best organized event at Holloman that I have ever done. (It was one of the best organized races ever, ranking right up there with Silverman.) They started on time, had lots of volunteers (but Mr. T still took a wrong turn on the bike), served a pasta lunch at the O-Club as soon as the race was over, and had the results and awards ceremony completed less than one hour after the last person finished the race.

It was kind of cool (maybe 60 degrees) and kind of windy (about 20 mph), but not bad at all for March in New Mexico.

Sixty-four individuals/relays started the race. Jason Atkinson was well in front of the field during the run (although you might not recognize him now that he has cut his hair.) Mr. T took off after him on the bike, but then made his wrong turn, followed by losing his breakfast (not a pretty sight) after a couple of miles. He never caught Jason, but he did finish as the second overall individual.

The rest of the Outlaws all managed to podium in their groups. Cody made his age-group debut and finished third. Greg finished his first race since last summer and finished second. Along with Mr. T, Naomi, Karen, and I all won our groups.

Personally, I don't know why, but I've been real slow in training this year. My run was pretty average today, but I was real happy with my bike. (21.4 mph average in the wind.) I caught a few people on the bike, and only one guy passed me. It must have been my new Outlaw aero helmet. Being the shy person that I am and lacking in self-confidence, I felt a little dorky wearing it. (Although I only wore it while on the bike and not during the run or the awards ceremony.) But I think there were some jealous people there, especially after they saw how I was flying on the bike!

It is such a relief to not be doing IMAZ this April. I was telling Greg last night about my boxing career at the USAF Academy. We had our boxing bouts in the late afternoon. On the days when I had a bout, I couldn't think about anything during the day except for the bout. The last two years, I could never do anything from January-April without having IMAZ in the back of my mind. I think I was in better shape the last two years, but I'm sure enjoying myself more this year. I sure enjoyed this race!

muffinman

Goodbye Old Friend

2008-02-26T20:17:00.000-08:00

I bought a Timex "Ironman" wristwatch almost five years ago. That was 82 races, two bikes, 15 pairs of running shoes, and what seems like a dozen or so "NM Outlaws" jerseys, shorts, skinsuits, and aero helmets ago.

However, it is dying. The display is getting harder and harder to see. I thought about taking it in to a jeweler to have the battery replaced, but watches never seem to work quite right after getting a battery transplant.

Tonight I was at Wally World, and I picked up a new "Ironman". The display is nice and clear, but this watch has no history to it.

What should I do with the old watch? Toss it in the old sock drawer and forget about it? Cremate it and spread its ashes over my favorite 5K run? Build a Viking funeral pyre and float it out into the middle of Bottomless Lake after setting it on fire? Offer it up to the Smithsonian Museum? Scratch a likeness of Ronald Reagan on the back of it and then sell it on EBay?

Goodbye, old friend.

muffinman

Feelin' Flu

2008-02-16T18:27:00.000-08:00

Straight away, I feel a twinge of guilt writing about my bout with the flu this week. Myles managed to tough his way through a 50 km ultra today. (Read about it on his blog, http://clydeologist.blogspot.com/ ). But I was watching the national and Albuquerque news last night, and both had stories about how many people had come down with the flu recently. This, is my story........

Last Sunday, I was planning on going for a long run. When I woke up, I didn't feel too perky. By the time I got around to going out, I'd bagged the idea of running and figured I'd do an easy recovery ride. I was gone for about an hour, and by the time I got home, I was feeling woozy. I started drinking juice with vitamin-C and gargling with mouthwash, but I could tell this was going to be around for a couple of days. Sure enough, I felt pretty crappy on Monday and Tuesday, but I felt like I might be coming out of it on Wednesday.

And then I woke up Thursday morning. Nauseous, sore throat, hacking cough, splitting headache, and every muscle in my body felt like I'd been run over by a truck. (Kind of the way I felt with six miles to go at IMAZ in 2006.) I literally tip-toed around at work, because it hurt to move. I got home at 4:00 and went to bed. At 9:30, I woke up, feeling pretty good. I got up and graded papers until midnight, figuring everything was going to be OK on Friday. I even gave a thought to getting in a swim or a run. However, I still didn't feel very chipper on Friday. At least I could walk without grimacing, and I was only coughing about once every ten minutes as opposed to Thursday where it was every 30 seconds or so.

So now it's Saturday. I feel great. I've been thinking, it's almost worth being sick so that you can experience the euphoria of feeling well again. And what the heck, we could all use a "recovery week" in our training schedules.

Then again, I don't ever want to feel as bad again as I felt on Thursday. Not during a race, and especially if I'm not racing.

muffinman

The New Golf

2008-02-03T08:55:00.000-08:00

The idea that triathlon (or specifically M-dot Ironman triathlon) will be the new golf has been out there for a while. My $0.02.......

Both require quite a bit of money just to get started. While you can rent a set of clubs at the public links and play in a pair of running shoes, anyone who is "serious" about golf will buy their own clubs, bag, shoes, and maybe even their own cart. While you might borrow a bike and helmet for your first triathlon, you'll soon be spending enough money on bikes, shoes, helmets, shorts, jerseys, and swim wear to pay for at least a year of college. Golf has its green fees or even pricier club dues. Triathlon has its race entry fees ($500 for an M-dot IM these days). Not to mention the costs of travel, lodging, and eating on the road in order to get to the race locations.

While I don't have the demographics at my finger tips, I can draw some conclusions based on my time spent around golfers and triathletes. Compared to the general population, both sports have fewer minorities, people who are generally financially secure, and people with at least some college education. (Of course you have exceptions to these generalities.)

It's cool to tell your golfing buddies that you are taking a trip to Monterey to play Pebble Beach or that you've been invited down to Georgia to get in a few rounds at Augusta. Triathletes drop lines such as, "There was the time I was doing Ironman "XYZ" and you should have seen how tough the heat/cold/wind/rain was on the day." Triathletes secretly (if not outwardly) plan their trip(s) to Kona.

So, will triathlon take over from golf?

I could be wrong (and I'm often hideously wrong), but I don't see it happening. USAT is excited that this year there are 100,000 athletes who registered with USAT. While that is probably a greater percentage of the US population than those who have registered with whatever association tracks curling, it is still only one in every 3000 Americans. It would mean there are about ten people in Clovis doing triathlons, and that is about right. There would be not quite 200 people in Albuquerque doing triathlons, and I'm guessing that's about right. However, the number of golfers in either location would dwarf the number of triathletes. If you start talking about sports and you mention "Tiger", "Phil", "Ernie" or "Veejay", quite a few people, (including a lot of "sports fans" who have never played a round of golf) know who you are talking about. Throw in "Macca", "Norman", "Faris", or "Tim", and even some triathletes would have a hard time placing these names to a face. Your average sports fan in the US wouldn't be able to guess what sport these guys are a part of if you gave them 20 guesses.

If you think about your average American with a few thousand dollars and a lot of free time to spend on a "sport", you've got to figure strolling (or riding a cart) around a pastoral looking golf course and then hitting the clubhouse bar for a few drinks is more appealing than going for a one-hour swim/five-hour bike/two-hour run (followed by some Endurox). And I've never had to deal with ill-mannered dogs, pot-holed roads, and crappy drivers on a golf course.

There must be some youngsters out there thinking, "When I grow up, I'll be a professional triathlete." But their parents are thinking, "You know, the guy who finishes in 276th place on the PGA money list makes more money in a year than I do in ten years. How many pro triathletes need their parents to buy their groceries and pay their rent?"

I won't go out of my way to watch golf on TV, but if I'm grading papers it provides a passable background. But as much as I enjoy racing in a triathlon, I can't see how watching even a two-hour ITU race would be much fun, much less an eight-hour IM.

I'm not saying it will happen, but I think triathlon, rather than becoming the new golf, could become the new tennis. If you can remember the late 70's-early 80's with Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Ashe, Everett, and Naritilova, then you can remember buying a tennis racket and playing some sets. Thirty years later, you see abandoned tennis courts used by skateboarders.

I wonder what someone will do with a carbon time trial bicycle frame thirty years from now?

muffinman

USA! USA. USA?

2008-01-25T18:32:00.000-08:00

Full disclosure. My own feeble abilities give me absolutely no right to criticize anyone else when it comes to triathlon results. However, since Al Gore forgot to include any editorial control when he invented the Internet, here goes........

OK, why doesn't the USA dominate triathlon? We invented the sport. We have a lot of people with spare cash to buy the best equipment and enough free time on their hands to train like they are getting ready for the Navy SEAL tryouts. We have access to all the right food (and most of the bad foods) along with every supplement you could want. We have coaches, doctors, and drugs (legal and probably at least some folks using illegal ones). We have a lot more races in the USA to earn slots to Kona. So what's up?

2000 Sydney Olympics
USA men. Shut out from the podium
USA women. Shut out from the podium

2004 Athens Olympics
USA men. Shut out from the podium
USA women. One third place medal

2007 ITU Worlds in Hamburg, Germany
USA Pro men. No one in the top-5
USA Pro Women. One third place medal
USA Age Group men. 4 x Gold medals (Only one less than 60 years old)
USA Age Group women. 4 x Gold medals (Only one less than 70 years old)

Kona 2007
USA Pro men. 4th, 6th, and 9th place
USA Pro women. 7th place
USA Age Group men. 5 x Gold medals (Only one less than 50 years old, and three of them were over 60 years old)
USA Age Group women. A welcome change! A near sweep of the age groups, only missing out on the 18-24 age group.

With the exception of the USA Age Group women at Kona this year, these are pretty slim pickings. Does this bother me? Not really. I don't live and die based on the results of any team or individual. It's just one more thing to ponder during a 5-hour bike ride/2-hour run/1-hour swim. What do they have in Australia, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal that we don't have? I can understand why Norway has better cross country skiers, and how would you expect the USA to start producing star sumo wrestlers, but our relative lack of recent success in triathlon gives me something to think about.

So, if you're reading this, why aren't you out there training!

muffinman

It's A Great Time To Buy

2008-01-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

What are you willing to spend money on? I thought about this when I heard that people were spending at least $700 for one Super Bowl ticket. OK, I'm not a huge football fan. I don't even watch the Super Bowl on TV most years. But it made me wonder, what kind of person would do this? Assuming you were going to buy at least two tickets (who would go by themselves), you are talking about some serious money. Look around, do your kids have shoes? What's your credit card balance? What did you give to the United Way last year? What are you going to get for your money by going to the Super Bowl? Guys on steroids spending most of their time standing around waiting for a play to start? Officials calling penalties seemingly at random? A seat in a stadium that has less room than the airlines give you in coach? A second tier/over-the-hill entertainer and some fireworks during the half-time show? The chance to pay $10 for a tepid beer, $8 for a shriveled hot dog, and $50 for the official program? Good grief, there must be a lot of suckers born every day.

Wait a minute. What about getting involved in triathlons instead? Let's see, bike, helmet, bike shoes, running shoes, jersey/shorts, goggles, sun glasses, chamois creme, spare tires/tubes, gels, electrolyte drinks, technical socks, etc..........
And you haven't even tried to sign up for a race yet! USAT membership, entry fee, gas money, hotel room, and meal money. Ratchet the costs up a bit more if you go out of the "local area" where you have to figure in airline tickets, a bike carrier, and then the airlines' "oversize luggage surcharge". If you want to get into an "M-dot" Ironman race, your entry fee is almost the same as the aforementioned Super Bowl ticket cost.
Beyond the money, what about the time? If I spent as much time practicing the piano as I do training for races, traveling to and from races, and doing races, I'd be playing a Carnegie Hall.

Thank goodness, when you go to a triathlon (as opposed to the Super Bowl) you always get a nice T-shirt for free!

muffinman

Statistics and Lies

2008-01-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

Myles always has some interesting stuff on his blog. He recently listed his 2006 and 2007 swim/bike/run miles and hours.

http://clydeologist.blogspot.com/

Myles compared the percentage of time spent on the three events. I don't track hours, but I do track miles and events. My stats for the past two years are as follows.

2006

Swim - 122.4 miles = 2.4%
Bike - 4258.7 miles = 82.3%
Run - 792.9 miles = 15.3 %

Swim - 123 Events = 29.6%
Bike - 150 Events = 36.1%
Run - 143 Events = 34.4%

Averaged 8.00 Events/Week

2007

Swim - 134.2 miles = 2.6%
Bike - 4292.3 miles = 82.1%
Run - 800.4 miles = 15.3 %

Swim - 134 Events = 30.6%
Bike - 157 Events = 35.8%
Run - 147 Events = 33.6%

Averaged 8.42 Events/Week

I don't know that these numbers say anything. They are pretty consistent from year to year, but that is mostly a result of how much time I have available and the races that I did rather than a conscious effort to do a certain amount of training. I did log a bit more swimming this year, but that was because I logged some extra miles in December for the USAT National Challenge Competition.

http://www.race-tracker.net/usat/

I'm concentrating on the BSLT 70.3 and the Silverman this year, so I'm guessing I'll get in more bike and run miles in 2008. Then again, it will depend on how much time is available.

Have a great 2008!

muffinman

Goals

2007-12-30T19:23:00.000-08:00

I am thinking about my goals for the 2008 triathlon season, and I was reviewing my 2007 goals. Straight away, I don't think I had especially good goals for 2007. I didn't think about the 2007 goals much during the year. I sure didn't make a special effort to meet them other than simply showing up at races and doing the best that I could. The 2007 "goals" were more of a wish list.

In 2007, I wanted to finish IMAZ and the Half-Silverman. Well, I showed up and I finished the races, and I enjoyed myself. I had "icing on the cake" goals to finish in less than 13:30/6:00 respectively. Flat tires in Arizona and too many hills and too much wind in Nevada (combined with minimal training) kept me from coming close to either of those times.

I wanted to finish in the Top Three in my age group in the SWCS. Although there are at least three people in my age group who are way faster than me, they didn't do eight races. I ended up winning my age group. Things would have been different if these other guys had been at more races, but I felt good about my season which included six wins, four seconds, and a third place in my eleven races.

I also wanted to set a PR in at least one race. This was not a good goal, given the variables in every race from year to year (wind, heat, where the turn-around buoy is placed at Bottomless, etc.) However, I did have two PR's. One was at Levelland, where the wind wasn't blowing for the first time in six years, and the other was at the Milkman, which actually is a pretty consistent course year to year.

Finally, I wanted to complete a 5K run in less than 21 minutes. I did the 5K run at Levelland in 21:37 and at Odessa it took me 21:45, but that is as close as I could get. I never did any training for this, and I'm sure not getting any younger, so I don't know why I should have ever expected to meet this goal.

So, what about 2008? I've never really worried about having an "A-race" to plan around, but I really want to concentrate on two races this year. I've done the BSLT 70.3 before, but mostly I just wanted to finish the race. Given the level of competition there, I won't ever finish on the podium (top half of my age group is possible), but I'm going to shoot to finish in under 5:45. (The winner of my age group will be about one hour in ahead of this.) I did the Half-Silverman in 2007, and I'm moving up to the Full Silverman this year. OK, just finishing is my goal, but if I train the way I plan to train, I should be able to finish in under 15:00. (The winner of my age group will be about three hours ahead of this.)

There you are. Two races. Two goals. Everything else will be icing on the cake.

Have a great 2008!

muffinman

Swimming

2007-12-24T20:00:00.001-08:00

How do I dislike swimming, let me count the ways..........

The Outlaws are entered as a team in the USAT National Challenge Competition. It's a pretty informal competition between teams to see who can log the most training miles per month. December is supposed to be the "Swim Session" month.

http://www.race-tracker.net/usat/

Straight away, it's always difficult for me to motivate myself to go for a swim. First off, I have to go to "the pool". (I can start a bike or run from my own driveway.) And I can only go to "the pool" during their scheduled "open swim sessions" when I'm not at work. For me, this means early in the morning (lose an hour of sleep) or in the evening (loss of family time and time to grade papers). "The pool" is used by a lot of people, but not many of them are "swimming". Senior citizens do a lot of water walking, and other folks like to float on their backs in a lane with a lifebelt to hold them up. (I'm sure they are telling their heart surgeons that they are getting in their "X"-hours of cardio per week.) Most times I can get at least half a lane to swim some laps, but there are days when I have to wait in order to start a workout. And then there is the smell of chlorine. I always shower with soap after a swim, but I can smell the chlorine afterwards, my wife always mentions how she smells it, and even my students in class said I smelled like chlorine.

Regardless, I figured I would do my bit for the team and try to log 20 miles of swimming this month. I know this is not a lot of miles for some triathletes, and if you look at the standings there are already people on some other teams with more than 50 swim miles this month. However, I normally only get in about 8-12 miles of swimming per month, and I've never in my life done more than 16 miles in one month. Throw in the limited days that the local pool is even open because of their "holiday schedule" along with the end of semester workload at school, and 20 miles of swimming was always going to be a challenge.

As of today, (Christmas Eve), I've been to the pool seventeen times and logged 18.65 miles. I'd like to say that it has been worth the time and effort and that I am now a much faster swimmer. However, although I might be a leetle faster (and I'm certainly no slower), it has not made a huge difference. Mostly, I just smelled like chlorine a lot of the time.

Where I did see a difference was in my bike and run fitness. In order to get in this amount of swimming (while keeping up with work, paying the bills, Christmas shopping, etc.) I spent almost no time on my bike or running. I've often thought that if I never raced a triathlon I would still ride my bike and run, but I probably wouldn't bother swimming. I don't swim hard enough to get in much of a cardio workout, and I could feel the difference after two weeks. I did some biking and running this weekend, and it sure felt good to be back on the road.

January is supposed to be the "Bike Session". I'm personally looking forward to getting out and logging some bike miles. Can't imagine what the teams in Michigan are going to do?

muffinman

Five Easy Pieces (Interesting Facts?)

2007-12-18T18:14:00.000-08:00

If I was an interesting person, I'd write a biography that would sell a million copies and then I could really retire. However, since skoshi http://shortandpunchy.blogspot.com/ asked, here you are......

1. My mom's side of my family was a lot more interesting than my dad's. She had two sisters, Lulu (actual name) and Wilma. Everyone called Wilma "Bumpy", but I don't know why. They left the farm when they were young, moved to the big city (Rochester, NY), and married Italian men, Lou DiFazio and Guy Borelli. City dwelling, Italian, Roman Catholics. Wow, they and their families were pretty exotic to me. THEY could write a biography that would sell a million copies.

2. I have a twin brother. We wore matching clothes every day of the week through sixth grade. We were both pretty good students, but starting in the sixth grade I went off the boil while he continued to excel. He scored 1600 on his SAT's, went to med school, and is now a well-to-do physician in California. I wish I had kept up with him.

3. I was the first chair trombone in the 1972 Stueben County (NY) "Wind Ensemble". This was as high as you could get for a public school band student from my school in NY State. However, I really wasn't that good. That was my senior year in high school. Because I had scored an "A-Rating" on my audition (Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershwin, I shudder now just thinking how it sounded as a trombone solo), I ended up ahead of the juniors and sophomores in the county who were actually better than me.

4. I voted for George McGovern for president in 1972. Nixon won easily, and there weren't very many people in the USAF who voted for McGovern. However, I felt I'd made the best choice in 1972, and I felt even better about my choice two years later.

5. I was a fighter pilot in the USAF for twenty years, ending up with about 4000 flying hours in the F-4, A-10, and F-111. Most of the flying was pretty tame stuff, training for WW III versus the Ruskies. I flew some "combat sorties" over Iraq in 1991, but these weren't very dangerous either. It was just after the First War With Iraq, and the Kurds were running from Iraq into Turkey. The Turks didn't want them either, so the Kurds were freezing and starving in the mountains along the border between the two countries. We flew escort and recon missions for the transport aircraft carrying tents, food, and water to the Kurds. We generally stooged around northern Iraq keeping an eye on the Iraqis. The Iraqis had just gotten their butts whipped in Kuwait, so they would just wave at us and we would wave back. I did fly some missions over Iraq with Chad Hennings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Hennings. Shortly after this, he got out of the Air Force and went on to play with the Super Bowl Dallas Cowboys of the 1990's.

muffinman

Silverman

2007-11-13T22:32:00.001-08:00

Viva, Las Vegas!

I managed to get two days off from school so that I could do the Half Silverman in Henderson, NV, on 11/11/07. (Veteran's Day, or Remembrance Day in the UK.) I wasn't up for the Full Silverman, but Myles and Cody were going to race the full so I knew I'd have company from some fellow Outlaws.

The first leg of the race was the drive from Clovis to Nevada. Myles had offered to let me car pool with him, so it worked out that I could leave Clovis Thursday PM and spend the night at chez Pilgrim. The 3.5 hour drive to ABQ was a nice warm up. We got up fairly early on Friday morning, stopped for coffee, hit Myle's favorite drive-in for breakfast, and then pointed west on I-40. I was going to grade lab reports and Myles was going to listen to books on tape. However, the i-pod cable gave up the ghost, so we ended up stopping in Gallup for a new one. Now we were really cruising in style, but then the i-pod ran out of charge. No problem, says Myles, there's a brand new never been opened charger in the passenger door panel. Well, I don't know if you've ever tried to open something in one of those bullet proof hard plastic covers without at least having a pair of scissors, but it ain't easy. About twenty minutes later, I had wrestled the silly thing open, and I had gotten in a good upper body work out too. From there on, it was "Death in the White City" (or a title close to that) coming from the i-pod while I graded more than half of the 61 chemistry and physics lab reports that I had with me.

About 9-10 hours after leaving ABQ, we were pulling up to the race expo in Sin City, Jr. (I don't think Henderson is really in the same league as Las Vegas, but you know you're not in Kansas anymore.) We bumped into Cody while we were doing packet pick up and bought a few things at the expo that we'd forgotten to bring with us. Then it was off to the Sunset Station casino/hotel, which was the host hotel for the race. This was a nice place to stay by any measure, and you got a significant discount for being in the race. Soon it was time for the pre-race pasta diner at the Convention Center. It was a good meal for the athletes, and you had the usual "thanks for coming/glad you're here" speeches from the race director. Don't get me wrong, they were really happy to have us there, and they made you feel that way. The highlight of the diner was the two short talks given by Dave Scott and Chris McCormack. The race director is really sharp and he seems to have a lot of connections. (Remember the 2006 Silverman where Tyler Hamilton and a couple of buddies showed up to try to win some large prize ($100,000) for finishing under 8 hours. They missed it by a few minutes when their runner melted down on the run.) Not only were Dave and Macca there for autographs and speeches, they were going to race the Half Silverman.

I adjusted my race goal to try to get clear of T-2 before Macca (who I figured would be the race winner) crossed the finish line.

Saturday started with a free pancake breakfast, and then the administrative details such as bike and bag check-ins. Myles and I drove the road portion of the bike course, which was obviously not flat, but it seemed to be doable. We attended the "mandatory" pre-race meeting, ate some pizza, and went to bed early.

Sunday, race day. They had shuttle buses to take you from the hotel to the race start/T-1 out at Lake Mead. After the horror stories of how cold and windy it was in 2006, this year was positively balmy. The air temp at the start must have been in the 50's and it warmed up pretty quickly to the 60's where it stayed until after sunset. They said the water was 70 degrees, and it didn't feel cold although I couldn't stop shivering while waiting for the gun to go off. (Really bad nerves, I guess.) The water in Lake Mead is really clear, especially when you are used to the swims in NM and West Texas. For the first few hundred meters, we were sheltered by a breakwater, and I thought I was going pretty well. However, once you cleared the breakwater, the 20 mph winds had stirred up some 2-foot waves. It wasn't exactly the north shore of Oahu, but is made the swim pretty tough. I was trying to time my stroke so that I could breath and sight while I was on top of a wave. But it wasn't easy. I knew my swim time was going to suck, and sure enough it was the slowest "wetsuit" 1.2-miles swim I've ever done. Still, I felt like it was a good swim.

The first 36 miles or so of the 56-mile bike were challenging but pretty fun. Lots of hills but nice wide roads with perfect pavement. Then, you turn off the road onto "the bike path". Everyone talks about the first three hills in the first mile of the bike path (known as "the three sisters".) They are really steep (18 percent) but thankfully none of them are very long. I figured once I had made it to the top of the last hill I could just cruise to T-2. However, you had a 6-mile slog into a 20-30 mph headwind on the rest of the bike path. At first I thought my rear tire had gone flat because I was moving so slowly. Eventually, I got back into town, and there were some volunteers and spectators to provide some support for the final miles into T-2.

I need to point out how well the race is supported by volunteers. There were only about 400 racers, counting both the full and half along with the relay teams. But there were plenty of volunteers. Of course you got all the things you would expect like aid stations and people to take your bike when you got to T-2. But I really liked the guys in the changing tents at T-1 and T-2. "Just leave all of your stuff on the ground. We'll bag it up for you." So I did just drop everything I was finished with or didn't need, and sure enough it was all in my bag when I picked it up after the race. My transition timex were easily my fastest ever at half or full IM distance.

Coming out of T-2, I could hear the announcers, and it didn't sound like Macca had finished. Sure enough, I got out of T-2 about six minutes before he crossed the finish line. The first mile of the run was downhill, and I thought I might be able to finish the run in two hours. The next two miles were uphill, and I changed my goal to running 10-minute miles. By the time I made it to the turn-around (which because of the twisted layout of the course was at the 7.6-mile point) I knew I wasn't even going to manage a 10-minute mile pace. It was a really tough course for me. There were very few flat sections. I wasn't going that fast on the downhills, and I was really slow when the road went uphill. I did manage to save enough so that I could "run" the last quarter-mile, and the announcers gave my NM Outlaws jersey a shout out.

I ended up with my slowest Half-IM time ever, but I think it was my best Half-IM race ever other than two years ago at Harvest Moon. It is such a tough course that anyone who says their PR was at the Silverman must not have done any other races. I ended up 4th in my age group (out of 11 finishers) and 72 out of about 170 overall. Next year, if I just do some serious training............

I had plenty of time to catch a shuttle bus back to the hotel, shower, swing by In and Out Burger, and then head back to the finish to catch the folks on the Full Silverman. Cody didn't quite make the bike cutoff that they had established for getting onto the bike path. It wouldn't be safe to let anyone onto that bike path after dark, and it gets dark early in Nevada in November. (But he did get in a nice 2.4-mile swim and 89-mile bike ride.) Myles came cruising into the finish in just over 15 hours. Just finishing the Full Silverman is an accomplishment, and a 15-hour race at the Silverman is really a good time.

We went to the awards ceremony on Monday morning. More free food and more funny speeches from Dave Scott and Macca. They brought out a Vegas showgirl, tastefully attired to present the trophies. Myles picked up his 3rd-place Clyde trophy and then we hit the road again. We had the long 9.5-hour trip to ABQ, but it was uneventful. I loaded up my vehicle with my stuff, bid Myles farewell, and then hit the road for Clovis. I was thinking I'd get home by 12:30 AM, but a vehicle wreck on I-40 had traffic stopped for almost an hour. By the time I got home and unpacked most of my stuff, it was after 2 AM. Just enough time to get 4 hours of sleep before heading into work.

I highly recommend the Half Silverman if you're looking for an end-of-season long course race and you aren't stuck up about only wanting to do an M-dot race. It is such a well run and well organized event, and although challenging, the Half Silverman course is beautiful and a lot of fun.

You probably enjoy suffering if you sign up for the Full Silverman, but everyone who did that race seemed to really have a good time too.

muffinman