RaceDayAlert: REDMAN Triathlon

REDMAN Triathlon RaceDayAlert

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At 20:13:29, Andrien Wang reached FINISH.

Total elapsed time is 12:59:08.

Copyright © 2010 Syzygy Sports Inc.

RaceDayAlert: REDMAN Triathlon

REDMAN Triathlon RaceDayAlert

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At 14:57:06, Andrien Wang reached RUNOUT.

Total elapsed time is 7:42:45.

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Copyright © 2010 Syzygy Sports Inc.

RaceDayAlert: REDMAN Triathlon

REDMAN Triathlon RaceDayAlert

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At 8:44:59, Andrien Wang reached BIKEOUT.

Total elapsed time is 1:30:38.

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The Dream

You know that crazy dream where you're back in college or high school and you have to take a test but you know you haven't studied. Well, I had a variation of that the other night.

I dreamt that I was participating in this crazy multi-day triathlon. I finished the swim on the first day (and in my dream I remember thinking that I did well), but somehow forgot(!) about the rest of the race and was traveling on a plane to some destination (I want to say Europe). As I was flying through the air (over the Atlantic?), I realized that I was going to miss the bike and the run. And consequently spent the rest of the flight/dream figuring out a plan to make it back in time for the finish (the laws of time and physics don't apply in dreams).

Of course, the good news is that right as I was getting really depressed about screwing up my scheduling, I woke up.

Yeah, Ironman training is messin' with me ... :-P

Ironman Swim (and Others)

(Yeah, yeah, I've been TERRIBLE at keeping up with this blog lately. Going to try to turn over a new leaf. I've been using Facebook status updates the last few months to log workouts, but I realize that it's darn near impossible to go back and look at past ones. Facebook Search is FAILED.)

Today, I did my first 4,000 yard (2.27 mile) swim since April. And it was a pretty good one - I completed the near-Ironman distance in 1:21:43. This is more than 2 1/2 minutes faster than my previous "PR while wearing baggy swim trunks" - and I was swimming so well today that I might have been able to break my overall 4,000 yd training PR if I were wearing the swim jammers. Scary! (And imagine the possibilities if the pool had been wet-suit legal :-)

Here are my 500 yd splits:

• 1st 500 yds: 10:35.5 (warming up)
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:13 (better, switched alternating breaststroke/freestyle for the rest of the swim)
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:03
• 4th 500 yds: 9:48 (really cooking here)
• 5th 500 yds: 10:05
• 6th 500 yds: 10:13 (just over an hour for 3,000 yds - not too shabby!)
• 7th 500 yds: 10:27 (getting tired)
• 8th 500 yds: 10:18 (DONE!)

For future reference, here some other recent long swims (have to clear out my watch's lap memory). As you can see I've been steadily increasing the length for my long swims to get back in to Ironman distance.

Friday, 6/25/10 - 3,000 yds in 1:02:31 (almost two minutes faster than last Friday)

• 1st 500 yds: 10:20
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:17
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:22
• 4th 500 yds: 10:30
• 5th 500 yds: 10:31
• 6th 500 yds: 10:31

Friday, 6/18/10 - 3,000 yds in 1:04:28 (slower swim - I never like seeing splits in the 11:00's - but I'll take it after having taken 2 days off)

• 1st 500 yds: 10:47
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:58
• 3rd 500 yds: 11:08
• 4th 500 yds: 10:40.5 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle for this and the remaining sets)
• 5th 500 yds: 10:28
• 6th 500 yds: 10:27.5

Monday, 6/14/10 - 2,500 yds in 52:21 - not too shabby considering it was after the Collin Classic (58 mi bike + 2.5 mi brick run) + Sunday 11.43 mi run

• 1st 500 yds: 10:34 (freestyle)
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:51.5 (freestyle)
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:57 (freestyle)
• 4th 500 yds: 10:05.5 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle)
• 5th 500 yds: 9:53 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle)

Friday, 6/11/10 - 2,500 yds in 54:52 (a bit tired, this is at the middle of a long string of workouts that started on Tuesday)

• 1st 500 yds: 11:03 (freestyle, wow - so slow!)
• 2nd 500 yds: 11:09 (freestyle)
• 3rd 500 yds: 11:22 (freestyle)
• 4th 500 yds: 10:39 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle, faster - but still slower than normal)
• 5th 500 yds: 10:39 (alternating breaststroke/freestyle)

Weekend Fun

No races = no new blog posts. So maybe I'll change it up with a training update.

I'm less than 6 weeks away from my next Half-Ironman race - the Texas Man Triathlon on May 16. So I thought I'd do a "full" workout on Saturday to gauge where I stand. Started with a 7-mile run - 3 miles by myself and then met up with the Keller Running Club for the first 4 miles of their 7-mile route. After that I went to LA Fitness for a 3,000 yd swim + 2.5 hrs on the spin bike (15 min warmup + 2 spin classes with 15 minutes in between). I had skipped breakfast (was running late for the phase 1 run) - Big Mistake: I was starving by last hour of spin. Pretty solid workout - 1.5 x Half-Iron Swim, 5/6 of Half-Iron Bike, 7/13 of Half-Iron Run - which makes for a nice confidence booster.

On Sunday, I put in some more time in the spin room. (Unfortunately, even though the weather was pretty nice, I didn't have time to do a properly ride outside - we have 11:00 AM reservations for Easter brunch. :-) In total, 2 hours and 15 minutes completed - call it about 40 miles of riding. Normally, I would estimate it as closer to 45 miles (assuming a 20 MPH average) but I was definitely moving a little more slowly today and the intensity was down a notch (especially for the first 1:15 which was self-paced) - some recovery from yesterday's efforts. But even though the bike ride wasn't optimal, it still counts as time in the saddle and back-to-back days of riding ("50 miles" + "40 miles"). This is definitely welcome as my other big upcoming event is the Sam's Club MS-150 - a two-day 150-mile from Frisco to Fort Worth on May 1-2 (less than a month away).

Finally, today, I did my longest swim over six months - 4,000 yds in 1:28:16. This is about 4 minutes slower than my equivalently-matched "PR while wearing baggy swim trunks" (and nearly 13 minutes slower than my overall PR of 1:15:23). A little disappointing, but now I know where I need to improve. I'm going to try to get in my some more long (4,000+ yd) swims, and hopefully some open-water swims as well, before May 16.

St. Patrick's Day Triathlon 2010

My St. Patrick's weekend tradition - a sprint triathlon in Keller. :-)

Another Dallas Athletes St. Patrick's Day Sprint Tri is in the bag. This was my third time doing this race and the sixth time that I've raced this course - a 300 meter pool swim in the Keller ISD Natatorium, a 12 mile bike ride, and 5K run on the Bear Creek trails.

I finished in 1 hour, 7 minutes, and 9 seconds for 5th out of 58 in the men's 40-44 age group, 56th out of 393 men, and 61st out of 601 finishers overall (though I'm pretty sure the 34th place finisher only did one loop on the bike - 27.2 MPH is kind of a giveaway).

Here are my splits:

• Swim: 5:42.8 (123rd)
• T1: 1:23.9
• Bike: 34:48.9 (20.7 mph average, 41st)
• T2: 1:08.4
• Run: 24:05.7 (7:46/mi pace, 159th)
• TOTAL: 1:07:09

Another finish in the top 10% of the field and this is a new course PR by over a minute - my previous best time was a 1:08:16 at the 2008 Monster Tri. Needless to say, I am very pleased.

Full results at http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?eventID=1846565&pubID=3

Garmin Connect info - Bike: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/26991954

Garmin Connect info - Run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/26991962

I arrived at the transition area fairly early (one of the benefits of living very close to the race venue) and was able to get into transition and get bodymarked without delay. I saw Melissa (doing her first triathlon) and Tyler as she was getting set up in her bike rack and met with Elizabeth, Steve and Archie as well.

After grabbing my chip and a last-minute transition area check, I headed to the pool for a warm-up swim. Said hello to spin-classmate Eddie and did 4 laps (200m). Was winded despite trying to keep the pace nice and easy - still too fast! Another reminder that perhaps the best reason to do a swim warm-up is to remind yourself how painful it will be if you go out too fast at the start. :-P

On to the actual race. After waiting for the approximately 200 swimmers before me, I got into the water at about 8:06 - about 27 minutes after the first swimmer.

The swim itself went very smoothly (except for the approximately 27 minute delay before I got into the water :-P). I was almost perfectly seeded - I only got passed by one person and passed two people myself - and experienced very little congestion in the swim lanes so I guess the wait was worth it.

T1 was pretty fast for me. The weather was cool, but not cold enough (for me) to have to take the time to put on a top. Grabbed two SaltSticks so that I wouldn't experience cramping, but decided to forgo taking a gel.

The bike out/in was laid out a bit differently versus in past years - winding past Keller Town Hall before the right turn onto Bear Creek Parkway. I think it actually made it a bit slower to get onto the main part of the course (and for the reentry back into transition) so I'm pleased that my bike time was only 30 seconds slower than my personal best for this course in light of the changes. Other than that I pushed hard on my bike - was only passed by one person (who ended up in 32nd place and was the female masters winner) - and overall it was a smooth ride as road conditions were good. I did run into a little traffic on Bear Creek Parkway around around Mile 5 as two police motorcycles were parked in the middle of the road with flashers on - they were helping a runner (? - not part of the race?) on the sidewalk - but it ended up being a non-issue.

T2 was also smooth. Unlike last fall's Monster Tri where I lost my shoe, I had no such mishaps this time. Racked my bike, put on race belt and running shoes, grabbed my "green leprechaun hat" and was on my way. As I started off on the run, I got a "go get 'em" from Archie (18th overall at 1:00:22) who had already finished!

I thought I had a decent run. Not a bad run, but not a great run either - or so I thought. Turns out that I PRed the run course by almost a minute (previous PR was 24:54). I guess that marathon training paid off. :-)

After crossing the finish line, I got to see Eddie finish a few minutes later (131st overall) and then met up with Tyler to see Melissa come in on the bike and head into T2 and subsequently out on the run.

Some more good finish times by Elizabeth (84th overall and 3rd in her age group), Faith (125th and 4th in her age group), and Steve (158th overall). And congrats again to Melissa and Leslie on their first triathlons!

After a little recovery and checking preliminary results postings, we enjoyed some pancakes hot off the griddle and listened (and maybe danced a little jig as well) to the band playing some Irish tunes while basking in the sun of an almost-springtime Texas morning. What a great day for a race!