Monster Blog Update!

Apologies for the lack of blog posts – been quite a busy week for me. Anyway, here’s a bit of a catch-up:

Friday 29th
Thoroughly enjoyable four miler in my Newtons, which incidentally have already covered over 100 miles! Really great to stretch out the legs at lunch time…

Splits: 7:58 7:34 7:19 7:18
(Loving the humidity by the way!)

Late afternoon swim at the rec center. Decided to make this my one and only swim time trial in the Breezy Point Triathlon build up. For the past couple of months I’ve just been logging the laps and not focusing on time at all. I was pleasantly surprised to break 20 minutes for the 1000m, which for me is actually pretty quick. I probably need to factor in an extra 3 or 4 minutes for Sunday’s open water swim over the same distance, but barring a disaster, I shouldn’t be last out of the water in my age-group.

Saturday 30th
Yet another 5k, which I believe is my 24th race of the year so far. The Lee’s Friends Run on the Wild Side 5k was a cool little event in support of a great cause and held at a neat venue – the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk.

I decided to try a new warm up routine which included lunges, stretches, easy running, skipping and several fast paced efforts. Despite taking about 50 minutes to perform the warm up, I felt good and will definitely incorporate it into future races/track workouts.

The race itself went well, although it was another one of those solo time trial efforts. Race winner Ryan Carroll (pictured above) was over two minutes clear in front which left me free in second place about a minute ahead of third spot. One of these days I’ll get to race a bunch of runners rather than battle against the clock. Anyway, I finished in 17:38 which was a pretty solid effort.

Cool down was okay, although my hips felt a little stiff and sore – probably caused by wearing my Brooks T5 instead of current favorite Newton Racer. I remembered this particular 5k course to be lots of twists and turns, and decided against the Newtons for this very reason. Due to the four “lugs” on the bottom of the Newton shoe, I’m not totally comfortable taking corners at speed and figured the T5 would be the better option. If only I’d known about the changed course 🙂

Sunday 31st
Here we go – Breezy Point Triathlon. Usually when I wake up on a race morning, I say to my wife Ally: “Could be worse, could be a triathlon”. Today, however, was a triathlon day and all I could think of was: “Could be worse, could be an Ironman”. I get very nervous before an open water swim and with this one being the first for almost five years, I was especially concerned.

Anyway, we (my wife and I) arrived at the race site with plenty of time to spare. I managed to snag a good transition spot and laid out all my gear. Good preparation is always key to shaving a few seconds off transition times, and with my swim as slow as it is, I’ll take every second I can get! Before long, the race director opened up the swim course for practice and, wetsuited up, in I went. The water was surprisingly perfect for open water swimming and I managed to swim out about 50m before treading water and surveying the scene. Damn, 1000m seems a long way in the open water! I gingerly paddled back to dry land and resigned myself to the fact it was going to be a rough 25 minutes to kick off the triathlon. No backing out though – I’d entered, I would definitely start and definitely make it to the finish.

Fast forward about an hour and here I am treading water with the rest of the 40-44 year old guys. Thankfully it turns out I’m not the only H2O-challenged athlete and I find myself in the middle of a bunch of guys all nervously waiting for the horn to send us on our way. We crack a few jokes, I hurriedly adjust my goggles and then we’re off.

Amazingly I find myself in a fair amount of clear space (probably because I’m already 100m behind the stronger swimmers), and it makes a pleasant change from some of the washing-machine-like swim starts I’ve experienced. Almost immediately I get into a groove and focus on the task ahead. I count down the orange buoys to the first turn and think to myself “Hey, this isn’t too bad”. My navigation was good, my progress was steady and I actually felt quite relaxed. The long, long back stretch of the swim course took forever, but I kept close to the course marker buoys and finally made the turn for home. Yes! Of course, all the faster swimmers from the wave 4 minutes behind ours had caught up to me by now and any doubt I had about where the exit swim ramp was located, quickly exited my mind. All I had to do was follow the mass of yellow caps to the finish. They were everywhere!

With about 150m to go I mentally rehearsed my swim~bike transition and celebratory punch-the-air-with-my-fist. I laughed underwater to myself that I was actually going to make it — not a good idea by the way, as laughing or smiling underwater causes your goggles to fill up with water — and within a minute or so my hand touched concrete and I was done! Swim time just over 22 minutes and time to take off the swim cap, goggles, wetsuit and get ready to bike.

The ride was quite uneventful, but enjoyable none the less. I’m definitely not a two wheel powerhouse but held my own and made up about a dozen spots in my age group. I averaged just over 19mph (very weak!) and almost as quick as it started, the 20k bike leg was over and I found myself back in transition putting on my Brooks Racer ST3s and trying to keep a left quad cramp at bay.

Now for the fun part – the 5k run. I exited the transition area (talking nicely to my legs all the time), grabbed a cup of water and focused on shaking out the burn from the bike ride. It took about a quarter mile for me to find my feet and then the only goal was to run as fast as I could and catch as many runners as possible. If the runner was male and had a 40, 41, 42, 43 or 44 sharpied on his right calf, it gave me extra incentive to catch and pass. I don’t recall being overtaken on the run and in the home stretch managed to pass another 4 or 5 guys – one right on the line who happened to be in my age group. Sorry whoever you were…

My run split was 19:05 — fastest in the 40-44 age group — and gave me an overall finish time of 1 hour 22 minutes and change; my fastest Breezy Point Triathlon by a couple of minutes. Not bad considering it was my first tri for 5 years and definitely an excuse for a celebratory Samichlaus!

Monday June 1st
Amazingly, there was no soreness after Sunday’s triathlon (apart from a stiff neck from looking up to sight the orange buoys), so I started the day with a nice progressive four miler. The weather was cool and breezy but deceptively humid! I guess I should also mention that it was nice to be back in my Newtons after a weekend on the Brooks side of the fence.

Decided to log a second run of the day and ended up with a pleasant 7 mile lunch time “progressive” with an easy mile cool down at the end. The humidity had dropped from earlier in the day, but it was still warm and very summerish. Also, this was the first run in my 2009 Newton Gravitas, which are definitely going to take some breaking into. I’d forgotten how “odd” a new pair of Newtons feel and how carpet-slipper-like my original Gravitas feel now I’ve logged over 100 miles in them. Great run though….

Splits: 7:32 7:19 7:07 6:55 6:27 6:20 5:59 6:58

Tuesday June 2nd
Great start to the day – 105 consecutive push-ups! I also forgot to mention, yesterday I received the first advance copy of my 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups book. It officially launched June 1st but will probably take a week or so to filter its way through to the stores and online retailers. The book looks great and I am VERY happy with how it turned out. People also keep reminding me that it will make a perfect Father’s Day gift, so my [biased] advice is to go out and buy one for the Dad in your life! Seriously, it’s a cool book and I’m very proud to say it’s mine.

Work was busy so it was great to get out later in the day and log an enjoyable eight miler in the sun. Temperature had “dropped” to 92, but it was still a scorcher – tremendous conditions!

Splits: 7:45 7:34 7:34 7:27 7:22 7:20 7:08 6:55

Wednesday June 3rd
I hate summer storms. I had planned to run a tough 4 x 5 minutes hard on the grass (in addition to a warm up/cool down), but a heavy thunder shower put me off the idea and I ended up running a 10k Strength Builder treadmill workout instead:

10 minute warm up, followed by 5 x 6 minutes hard (90 sec recovery) and a cool down. Not the National Running Day workout I was looking forward to, but it was still a solid one. I ended up at 10mph and 10% incline – not a bad effort.

Thursday June 4th
Glutton for punishment – I just did 110 consecutive push-ups. Now that I’m off the plan, I find myself in push-ups-no-mans-land, so figured I’d have another go at the hundred. Not sure how, but I managed 5 more than a couple of days ago too.

That’s me all caught up now. Sorry for the extra long post and I’ll try not to leave it as long next time.

See you at the races!