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Build Up To Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island

June 13th, 2011

I’ll be racing Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island along with Patrik and Scott on July 10, 2011.  This will be my first attempt at the half iron distance.  My goal is to complete the event in under 5 hours, which may be a bit aggressive, but that’s my style.

Training for this distance began on Jan 1st of this year.  After months of base building and some Vo2 max work, I feel confident that my training has prepared me well.  Improvements have been made in all three triathlon disciplines.

Swimming is my weak link, but I’ve put in the pool time three days a week with a masters program at Healthpoint.  Progress is being made.  Recently, I completed a 1-mile swim race in the Charles River put on by the Charles River Swimming Club.  While I did not set any records, I did gain confidence swimming that distance in open water.  I’ve got another 1-mile swim race on tap soon in Mashpee called Cape Cod Super Swim.

Cycling has been my focus this year.  Specifically, cycling power on a TT bike in the aero position.  Again, progress has been made and I’m happy where I stand right now.  I’ve built up my long bike rides to three hours, which should promote enough endurance to race the half iron distance.  My wattage output has been decent as measured by a SRM power meter.  Over the past month, my long bike rides have averaged 210-225 watts.  Not horrible for a 152lb chap.  Still have a long way to go here, but taking it one season at a time.  I’ve recently rode the 70.3 Rhode Island course with Patrik.  We completed the training ride in 2:43, which included slowing down for lights, blind corners, and the very busy few miles heading into Providence.  Based on that effort, I’m targeting a time of 2:38 for the bike leg come race day.  To those also racing, I offer some bike course feedback.  The elevation changes are constant, with most of the descents not offering much recovery(see below).  Around mile marker 29, you will have the option to continue hammering or take the best recovery opportunity while covering a multiple mile descent.  The other comment I have is the road conditions are less than ideal.  Many massive potholes that will flat people for sure.  The worse section of the course is over the last few miles and includes a couple sets of railroad tracks.  Enjoy:)

As for running, all is well.  This discipline is my strongest.  Perhaps its based on my body style….perhaps my love for running.  Either way, I’ve made solid improvements over last year.  Long runs have been worked up to 90 minutes with a pace of 6:38-6:42 with a moderate HR.  I’ve only scratched the surface of speed work so far this season, but was still able to get a PR of 17:47(and 3rd overall) at the 9th Annual Christopher’s 5k on May 30th.

Last but not least is nutrition.  I’ve been working with QT2′s Core Diet program and Race Fueling Plan.  My plan is well defined at this point. Clearly, the actual race will test this plan, but this is the best I can do right now.  I’ve practice proper fueling and recovery with every training session.  I hope my body has become accustomed to this form of nutrition come race day.  My nutrition of choice is Powerbar Perform and Powerbar gels.

With all this preparation, my goal times by split are:

  • Swim 37:00
  • T1 2:00
  • Bike 2:38
  • T2 2:00
  • Run 1:30

That would be good for a 4:49 overall.  Again, I’ve never raced this distance before and will probably get a rude awakening.  But hey, BRING IT ON!!

Cheers,

David

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Last Minute Prep and Taper

March 30th, 2011

Oceanside 70.3 is here. Well, pretty much. Today is Wednesday. Race is Saturday. I’m nearing the end of a 10 day taper. My last hard workouts were last week, since then it’s been easy going. Prepping my bike and gear to make sure everything is all set.

So what’s the plan? Well I got some new Michelin Pro Race 3 tires from Probikekit.com (side note: they are a UK based bike shop with great prices, no tax and free delivery). They had a special where the 2 tires with 2 tubes were $65 delivered. As compared to $63 EACH at local bike shops. Of course, due to limited supply I got the beige ones, so my bike looks like it has old school white wall tires. But I’m going for the vintage look.

I also spent some time cleaning my bike, and cleaning and lubing the chain. There was a lot of sweat, salt and grime everywhere. After nearly 6 months of indoor riding. I also replaced my PowerTap hub batteries. Just in case. The head unit looks ok.

What’s left? I need to install my new 44oz Profile Design aero bottle, mix up some Infinit and we are good to go. I figure 44oz there and 24 oz on the downtube should provide enough nutrition (about 1000 calories) for the bike portion. Might throw in a few GU’s as well. I also need to install my rear wheel cover once it arrives (it’s currently on a plane from Boston with my parents…).

Tomorrow I plan to go down to the race site to register, get my race packet and soak in the tri vibe. The race season is here. I go off at 7:08am Pacific, #956. Follow my race online…

My Oceanside specific training started Dec 1, 2010, and after 1406 bike miles, 306 run miles and 81,000 yards of swimming, it’s show time. Though when you look at it like that – doesn’t really seem like much.

20110331-063456.jpg

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Nike Free 3.0 v2 Review

February 19th, 2011


Figured I’d pass along a shoe review for the Nike Free 3.0 v2.  Over the past two years, I have run in a number of sneaks.  Most recently, I had been running in Newtons.  Honestly, I don’t really feel a difference between Newtons and a traditional running shoe.  For the record, I have a neutral gait and do not heel strike.

Anyhow, I purchased a pair of Nike Free 3.0 v2 last week.  My coach had recommended them.  At first I was apprehensive, because of my dislike toward Nike sneaks in the past as they didn’t quite fit me right.  Well, I got over that fast.  Here are a few take-aways from the first few runs in them.

  • They feel like slipper and are super light.
  • Enough support for me, not sure how this applies to everyone….
  • Feet don’t get as hot like other shoes I’ve run in.
  • No rubbing the back of my heel.
  • Tongue is molded in nicely so it stays in the right location.
  • The price point is decent at $85 a pair

I highly recommend these running shoes.  The only con I can think of is they will be tough to use in harsh winter conditions, because the material looks prone to water entry.  Not a big issue in my opinion.

I’m heading out for my first long run in then this weekend.  I will update this entry afterward.

Happy Training

David

Update 2.20.2011: Just got back from a long run in the Nike Free 3.0v2 sneaks.  Loved them.  No pain anywhere.  Felt very light.  Excellent grip on some icy sections too.  I think I’ve found my running shoe:)

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Team Psycho ITT; ready, sweat, go!

February 17th, 2011

Dave and I participated in the Team Psycho, hosted by Fast Splits, indoor time trial last week. It was 9.3 mile (15km) ITT on Computrainers. Heats went every hour starting at 8am, consisting of 16 riders per heat. We both signed up for the 11am heat and arrived around 10am to watch that heat and start warming up.

Unlike other ITT’s this one wasn’t the best in preparation. Very casual… to say the least.

At 11 we got setup for our heat and when the timer counted down, we went off. We both had a plan from our coach to stay “easy” for the first 3 minutes (for me that meant 335w), then kick it up to the 15 minute mark (for me, go to 350w), then for the remainder hit your average to that point, which should have been about 345w. I started out to plan, but about 10 minutes in, I could no longer hold the 350w and started slowing down a bit. My HR was pegged at about 176 and I just couldn’t do it. Power started dropping drastically. At this point I was 2nd plance in the heat, and hanging about 300ft back of 1st, but couldn’t make any gains.

I ended up finishing with a time of 22:57.9 which was good for 12th on the day. I’ll take it. 334w average. Not great… but good enough. Local stud Ethan Brown took the top spot with a 21:27 @ 376 average watts. Crazy power for a 144 pound lanky kid. Hannah Freeman was top female with a 24:05, besting pro triathletes Karen Smyers, Dede Griesbauer, and Cait Snow.

Dave finished 20th overall with a 23:24 @ 304w. But believes his CT was off – and should have been closer to 265w. You never know.

Oh, and there was no beer post race at the event as promised – so we hit up Chipotle for some burritos and Dos XX‘s!

Let’s get to some outdoor racing!

Full Race Results

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VO2Max, Lactate Threshold and 9 weeks to go

January 18th, 2011

The winter is passing slowly, and today is yet another day where snow is falling from the sky. I awoke to a balmy 25 degrees and left the house to hit the pool for Masters Swim at 6:00am.

With just 9 weeks to go until race day (Oceanside 70.3 April 2nd), I have officially ended 4 weeks of VO2Max workouts and entered Lactate Threshold phase (also for 4 weeks). What does that mean? Well, VO2Max phase was hard. It was a lot of very difficult workouts consisting of short hard intervals. High wattage efforts on the bike (350w for three and a half minutes), and high speed intervals running (5:45 pace for 3:00). And repeat. And repeat and repeat.

The first week of the month has greeted me with a stomach bug, which basically had me in bed for 5 days straight. Basically on a liquid diet, fatigued and sleeping 12 hrs a day; but I watched about 8 hrs of 24 Season 3. Thank goodness for Netflix streaming. Unrelated to training, but it took it’s toll. As quickly as it set on, it was gone, and I got right back to race preperations.

This week marked the start of Lactate Threshold – which is all about slightly easier efforts, but longer durations… so biking at or above FTP for 10 or so minute intervals, and running mile repeats at or slightly faster than 5km race effort. So much to look forward to.

I have been stuck indoors for most of the workouts, bike and run intervals, long bike efforts on the computrainer; I do try to get out and do my long run outside (last week was a nice 26 degrees but apparently it felt like 9).

I also ordered a Thule 699 bicycle travel case to transport my bike to and from races via air. Full review coming – I expect delivery this week. I got a seemingly great deal on Amazon via a 3rd party retailier. $315 no tax/delivered (vs $342 from amazon, $379 retail). While I don’t trust the review on the Thule site (since the reviewers gripe is against airline fees, not the product itself…) I have heard good things about it on other sites and forums.

Also coming up this week is a race effort simulation of the CA70.3 course on the Computrainer. How does the CT stack up vs real life? We shall see. Hopefully real life will be as fast or faster than the CT effort. Stay tuned for the results of that….

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IMCA70.3 – 18.5 weeks to go

November 24th, 2010

I figured I’d write some blog entries for my preparations for Oceanside 70.3. Technically I’m in week 3 of preperations, though I had about a 6 week hiatus, in which I did little more than run 7 times. I’ve been back at it for about 2.5 weeks, but my swimming pace is way off, my running and cycling paces are slightly off as well. But I can’t believe how badly I’m swimming. Hope that turns around soon. Right now I’m putting in about 9 hrs per week of easy swimming, biking and running, about 3 hrs each. I need to get back on track.

I am also trying to lose weight. at 6’1.5″, I’m not overweight at 190, but for a triathlete, it’s just not going to cut it. I’m targeting racing at 170-175lbs in April, so I’m focusing on that. I’ve been using myfitnesspal.com to track calories, and currently trying to go -1000 per day. Though, I rarely hit. After my hiatus, I tipped the scale at 191. Today, I’m down to 187 (2.5 weeks). I spent this season racing at 184-186, so not too far off that. We’ll see what happens in the next 18.5 weeks.

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Plymouth to Provincetown

June 11th, 2010

Embarking on a solo ride of 65 miles from south Plymouth to Provincetown. I’ll try to post some pics along the way, and some comments if I have time.

My goal is to stay in the 151-155 bpm heart range, which on a good day should equate to about 20.5-21.5 MPH. We shall see. This is part of my regular triathlon training for this time of year, but falls in line with my attempt at the 1/2 iron distance Patriot Triathlon next week (6/19/2010).

There is a group of about 15 that will start about 90 minutes behind me. We plan to meet up at the finish. Hopefully I’ll be revived and soaking in the sun… and beer. They are riding 90 miles.

Update 8:25am. Heading out. A little late (goal is to make it by lunch at noon).

Update 11:35am. Made it to downtown Provincetown. Taking a seat… 64.25 miles, 3 hours 10 minutes. Not bad. Took the first 37 minutes easy to get over the bridge and get out of the traffic areas, then tried to cruise in my HR zone to the 3 hr mark. Had to stop at a couple of lights, 2 railroad crossings, and some road work. So I lost some time here and there. Overall I’m happy with my pace. Total ride was still over 20mph including all stops (didn’t stop for any other reason then listed). Portion where I pushed I was about 21.5 for over 2 hrs. Consumed 5 gels and 2 bottles of gatorade. Felt good.

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ITT at Multisport Expo Coming Up

March 16th, 2010

Dave and I are at it again. This time at the Sun MultisportExpo on Saturday 3/20, held at MIT. We’ve entered as a team, so our combined time will pit us against all other teams. This TT is 10km, course is unknown, but I’m sure there’ll be at least one good climb. Hopefully, they won’t mess up the weigh-ins this time and put us in too heavy (and others too light!).

UPDATE 4/1: So how’d we do? There are photos below. But, it was a heck of an effort. Team BayState finished 3rd (of 8 teams). Patrik rode in at 15:38 and Dave rode a 15:57. Course was actually the Computrainer Central Park course – 6.03 miles. Overall winner, Dean Phillips,  rode a 13:52!

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Indoor Time Trial – Part II

February 2nd, 2010

So Dave and I (and a few other Bay State Tri Team members) raced the Harpoon Indoor Time Trial. Boy was I in for a surprise. We arrived at about 11am and it was 9 degrees outside. Fortunately we raced inside. The staging area was in the beer warehouse. So we grabbed some trainers, with views of some Harpoon UFO beer and claimed our warm up spot.

The race was held inside the bottling area. Fast Splits was the race organizer and had set up 3 groups of 8 Computrainers. Each group with it’s on multi large screen setup where they can view how they fared against other racers, where on the course they were, how fast they were going and how far behind a rider they were. Very slick. Dave compared it much to a carnival game where you squirt your water gun and try to be the first man to finish.

Come race time, we set up, got calibrated, which was a combination of weighing (so heavier riders got more resistance), and warmed up some more waiting for the race to start.

3.2.1… and the pain starts. My goal was to keep my PowerTap pegged at 315 (what I thought was my FTP). After about 3 minutes of pedaling I was in 3rd place in my group of 8, and falling behind. So the competitive side of me threw the plan out the window, upped my wattage to 350 and put my head down to catch up. As I approached, fellow Bay Stater, Frank moved into first and I moved into 2nd so now I had to chase him down. I was able to pass him and move ahead a few hundred virtual feet. As I pulled ahead, I noticed Dave moving into 3rd. We had a good group! Then the hill hit. Ouch. 1 mile of uphill pain. My lead diminished to 0. Frank and I crested the hill neck and neck and it was a 1 mile all out effort to the finish line. We climbed up to 30 mph, 35… maybe more. Neck and neck, 0 feet, 1 foot, 0…. We cross the finish line… unofficially 0.02 seconds apart. A fraction of a second? Are you kidding me? Reviewing my power file… 180 max HR, 336 watts avg.

We await official results… Dave quietly finished 3rd… just 28 seconds behind. Any longer and I’m sure he would have got us both! It was the hardest 8 miles of life. I was a sopping wet sweaty fool.

We’ve already signed up for a 3/20 team race at the Multisport Expo at MIT.

UPDATE: The official (unofficial?) results are in. There was some talk that the weigh-ins were inconsistent which could have led to strange timings… Regardless. The overall winner finished in 18:37.01. Basically an ass whopping if there ever was one. Your faithful bikers finished as follows:

Patrik – 96th – 22:06.77
David – 110th – 22:30 – unofficial, as the official time had him at 28:00 something…

Other Bay Staters:
Frank – 97th – 22:06.92 – 0.15 seconds!
Brian – 172nd – 23:54
Jeffrey – 238th – 28:15

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Indoor Time Trial

January 20th, 2010

Coming up January 30th, David and I (among some other BayState folks) will be participating in the  Harpoon Brewery Indoor Time Trial in Boston. It’s an a 10km (6.2mi) 8 mile all out effort on computrainers. Heats will be running all day starting at 1:00PM. The last heat goes off 9:45PM. 15 riders are pitted against each other in each heat. I’ll update post race and report how it went.

Update: Apparently the race is held in the warehouse / brewing area of the building which has no climate control. So, due to recent cold weather, temperatures inside are expected to be 40-50 degrees F. At least there’s no wind!

Go!

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