Archive for sport
June 21, 2007 at 11:16 · Filed under sport
This race report brought to you by, me.
I woke up this past Sunday morning to perfect race conditions — 20 degrees C, and not a cloud in the sky.
Slept… nnnnn..ok considering the lack of AC in the building, and the six of us who were crammed in the same room at the youth hostel. By 6:20, I had eaten and by 7:15 was out the door, picking up my race number and getting settled in the tiny slots they give us age-groupers to hold our bikes etc.
I warmed up fine and jetted over towards the swim start. On my way, I stopped at the toilets for a final pre-racer, and for some reason, there were a few bone-heads who got stuck in there… long story short — by the time I got to the start, and was just putting on my goggles, the gun went off. Needless to say, I wasn’t quite ready to jump in the water… but hey.
SWIM
I wasn’t gonna break any swim speed records so I jumped in and swam up the inside avoiding the blender of slow swimmers. The race had us go 500m straight out, then around a second buoy 35m away, and then straight back in again. Then we swam close to the shoreline for abt 320m and this a final 100 or so into the transition area. My first 500 was good, the second 500 was not as goo, simply because the sun was right in our eyes, and, along with foggy goggles, made for a fair bit of zig-zagging in the open water, despite my open-swim practicing these past three weeks!
I kept a solid rhythm throughout the entire distance and climbed out of the water having expended the minimum amount of energy possible over the 1.5km swim.
Note: I went into this race looking to test myself and see how efficiently I could race. This is my first Olympic distance race since 2001.
OK, I was really slow on the swim, but considering I haven’t been in the pool but maybe once a week, I was happy –hr average around 160; out of the water in 26:48.
BIKE
After a mediocre transition, I tried to get my legs on the bike, which unfortunately took a good 10km. Here are my bike splits -
0-5km in 8:10
6-10km in 7:59
11-15km in 7:36
16-20km in 9:10 (hill!)
21-25km in 7:12
26-40km in 21:50
total bike time — 1:01:59 (according to my watch)
*A brief note — i got swept up by a massive pack of 12-15 riders (each with a bike costing 6 months my salary) as I finished going up the steepest hill in the race around km 22 - and got sucked in with them.*
I did make a big effort to stick outside of the major drafting zone, but there is only so much one can do to get out of the zone without crossing over to the other side of the road. Consequently, I tried to stay among the front few riders and helped pull a good bit moving out to the middle of the lane. It definitely was a help to my legs come the run. The bike course was for the most part flat and definitely the type of course to PR on.
RUN
I had a great transition onto the run and trotted out onto the course, making sure I didn’t go out too fast, and also nervously wondering how my legs would react to my new nutrition plan and bike setup. I moved along at a OK pace, trying to get my breathing under control, which was, as usual, going crazy, huffing and puffing like an overheated dog. (I personify my breathing, because it feels almost like another person inside of me)
Now, for a mystery - can you help solve it?
My half-marathon race heart rate is between 166 and 172. — That’s for 21km of running.
My 10km race heart rate should be between 178 and 185.
My 10km run heart rate at Zug started at 161… moved its way up to 165 by the 5th km and only on the final 2km did I get my heart rate up to 170. Any ideas why? I don’t mind hurting on the run… just tell me how.
On the third and then especially on the fourth kms, I had big-time stomach cramping. I don’t know what it was. I will have to talk with some veteran racers. I drank 1 litre of Isostar and had 2 Goos on the bike, all with no problems at all. Perceived exertion during the bike was less and with an average heart rate of 155-160, perhaps it did make a difference. At any rate, my stomach was so tight on the fourth km that I had to stop and walk for about 10 seconds. I tried beating my stomach with my fists, yelling, burping (couldn’t). Anyhow. it hurt - lots! After km 4, we turned around and went back “down” towards the lake again. At this point, my mind turned its focus on the raw rubbing feeling of huge blisters being formed on the insides of both my feet. Consequently, I tried to run on the outsides of my feet to avoid a hug blood fest and a possible DNF if it got bad!
As my times below show, km 4 is where I had my stomach cramps and then as I got over the trauma of the start, I felt better as the race went on.
4:13
4:02
3:56
4:18
3:49
4:01
4:01
4:06
3:47
3:45
Swim - 26:48
T1 - 1:49 (28:37)
Bike - 1:01:59 (1:30:36)
T2 - 0:46 (1:31:23)
Run - 39:58
—————————
Total time: 2:11:21
(Placed 106 out of 286 men) (6 women had better times.. I blame it all on the swim!!)
results
Again - this race was really a testing ground - where do I stand — and what am I capable of??! Some brief thoughts -
1. Swimming: Although I did swim a horrible time of 26:48, I am sure with 3-4 good swim practices a week I could easily make my way down to into the 23s. (Down from the 24s where I was back in 2001) If I really went for it and swam the required 30km a week of a committed triathlete, I bet in a few years I could be down in the low 20s.
2. Transitions: My T1 stinks because I am generally very out of breath after the swimming, and I have trouble getting the wetsuit off. Answer — get some of that slippery gel stuff on my legs for easy exits.
3. Bike: Wes Hobson in his book “Swim, Bike, Run” recommends upping your kicking cadence the last minute or two of your swim to get blood circulating in your legs again before the bike. It was clear that I had absolutely nothing the first fifteen minutes on the bike. I couldn’t stay with any of the guys who passed me. I will have to try out this “Wes remedy” more frequently.
4. Run: From the looks of things heart rate wise, I can easily run 37’s for the 10km, and possibly quicker depending on the running I do from now through next season. One of the big areas I need to understand better is how to get breathing under control, and get into my rhythm early on. After that, its just being gutsy enough to push through pain (like cramps, blisters lactic acid etc… I am definitely going to test out some recommended insoles from a local sports store)
Goals for Zug 2008 —
swim - 24:00
bike - 1:00:00
run - 37:00
total time - 2:03:00 (a top 40 placement compared with this year’s times)
doable? yes.
Powered by ScribeFire.
June 18, 2007 at 12:51 · Filed under sport
No time to write, but am putting up photos from the race. Harriet did an amazing job taking pictures, despite the massive temptation to visit some of the trendy coffee shops which Zug has. She did get a start on a great tan, and got to visit the deer farm and the bird farms again.
Enjoy!
Powered by ScribeFire.
June 12, 2007 at 12:45 · Filed under sport
Harriet finally cracked and let me get a bike. After 7 amazing seasons with my first owned adult bike ever (Javelin) I have changed from a tri-bike to a road bike — a 2007 Trek 5000 Carbon. Check out specs here.
So far, I really like it and will love it much more if I am able to race this weekend without cramps. (*I have decided that me having too big a bike and the tri-position accounted for the cramps on the run) This bike is a 54″ compared with the 57″ behemoth I was riding. Now a new set of Bontrager Race XXX Lite wheels and I will be ready for the Olympics!
I also changed the seat, and had a set of 3T mini-sub8 draft legal aerobars put on.
What did a new carbon Trek with 105/Ultegra all over cost me? Not much — thanks to our club’s local bike shop Hubacher and their sexy team discount!
Here are some quick snaps of my baby:
June 11, 2007 at 22:55 · Filed under sport
My 2007 duathlon/triathlon season has started! It is pretty ridiculous, actually, to think about how much training goes into having a half-decent race. Good thing that the training is also a fun time for me!
So my first race was a short duathlon in Ecublens, outside of Lausanne. The Duathlon du Cancer, is a 3,8 - 20 - 3,8 run-bike-run. (www.association-destiny.ch) The weather was nice, about 23 or so, and the rain decided to stick out of the way, making the technical bike course safer.
I started out the first 3,8 conservatively, averaging 3:45kms despite an annoying run course, which seemed to always be going gently uphill.
On the 20km bike, I got to test out my new Trek 5000 in race conditions. It is fairly obvious, the new position means that I will have to put in a lot of kms to get back to the speed I was at before I changed bikes. The switch from a tri frame to a road frame was difficult. Despite that, I still averaged almost 36km/h. I had a lot of trouble with the sharp turns, and was surprised that the non-draft race had many little groups moving along swiftly. I asked several racers if we were allowed to draft, and finally, a teammate said it was “allowed” in the race. The big problem with my bike, was the wrong turn I made 2/3 of the way through the first loop. I took a right instead of left. I didn’t do my homework well enough on the course, and no one was in front that I could see, as well as there not being an official to direct the athletes.
I lost about 2:10 along with some pep in my step as I had to come back up a fairly large hill to get back on track.
Onto the final run, I focused on getting my breathing under control in the changing area. My legs felt really good and not tight as in past years. I really hope that is the case from now on! I focused on getting into a rhythm and then picking off people one by one. I passed three guys in the first two and a half kilometers, trying to keep up good leg speed. I kicked it in around the track and finished the second run faster than my first one. (13:36 — 3:36/km)
If my bike had gone according to plan, I was looking at 10th or 11th place. I am happy. Here are the results.
June 6, 2007 at 11:13 · Filed under sport
One of the big achievements of the first half of 2007 for both Harriet and I was the successful completion of the Geneva half-marathon on 6 May 2007. I will write from my experience and Harriet will write from hers.
I went into this race confident that I could run 1:30:00 without too much of a problem, especially as the course was pretty much flat. We arrived in good time, the temperature was not hot, but not too cool either. The clouds helped as it kept the temperature at an acceptable level, a very good thing for me. We got our race gear and put our bags in the race container which had been organised for entrants. With 20mns left before the start of the race, I ran to the porta-pottie for the pre-race relief, stretching whilst in line. I then got a 5mns warm-up and about 8 strides in. then 5mns before the start of the race, some more stretching. Before I knew it, the gun shot, my heart rate was already pumping with nerves, and we were off.
It took me about 10 seconds to get past the start line, which isn’t too bad considering the amount of ppl. Many people shot by me, some of them I guess hoping it really wasn’t a 20km race. It was. I went through the first three km in 11:25 (avg of 3:48 per km). This worried me a bit, and my heart rate showed it, as I was quickly (from the first seconds of the race) up to 162, right below my marathon target heart rate. Somehow, I think the first few km were short. Assuming not, we then fell into groups, and continued on around the lake at a more manageable pace (4:10, 4:08, 4:09, 4:07, 4:07, 4:12 [water break], 4:05, 4:02 etc…)
It was exciting coming back after the first 5.5km because you got to see who was in front of you, by how much, and the masses of people behind you. We also got to see the first few pros fly by at the end of their second loop of the marathon. Wow. A few guys I had been running with took a little distance on me before the water stop, as did the number 2 woman in the race. I focused on my breathing, my form and my rhythm as I chugged through the center of the old town. Zig-zagging across bridges and around buildings was not my favorite part of the race by any means, and it was tough on the psyche.
Coming up on km 14 I took a second Goo and checked my time. My heart rate had moved up to 170 on a small incline leading to the 14km water point. At this point in the race (57mns) I ate as much of the Goo as possible and refocused on my breathing. It was not easy to ingest water/Goo while trying to keep that pace. The last 7km were harder, with my HR staying at 170-173 as I moved back towards the Jardin Anglais and finally, across the Pont du Mt Blanc again and up the Rive drive towards the OCM.
With 3km to go, I passed an old friend of mine (he is a machine!) who was doing the race as a training run, after having biked 50km into Geneva from his house. With 1.5km to go, and a v slight downhill, I passed the number 2 girl in the race, now well above my VO2 Max. I probably sounded like a buffalo running full thottle. At that point, I really didn’t care. The heels of my feet were both burning, apparently having managed to rub through the skin by 16km or so. lovely. I kicked it into the finish grateful the race was over and super excited that I had managed to keep such a good pace. I was overjoyed to find out I had run 1:26:32, 1.5mns faster than I had though I was capable of, and a full 3.5mns faster than I was expecting to run, having only started training for the race 10 weeks prior!
Final Time: 1:26:32
Place: 114 overall
Pace: 4:06/km
Heart Rate: 167 bpm
Below are some great pics my bro Dave took.
December 27, 2006 at 11:01 · Filed under life, sport
I have to say, I am challenged by the exciting story of Dean Karnazes, who completed running 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states this past November. (and then decided he wanted to run home from New York to San Francisco.. apparently!!!) Marathons still seem a far off dream for me, well… somewhat of a dream. The 26.2 miles seems to be a sort of mythical distance that I can never seem to get to. I ran 21km (half a marathon) recently and was kinda long… Maybe I should hit 30km before attempting the great 42.1km run.
At any rate, this guy inspires me because he has the guts to push himself past where most would go. In this article, I read a quote of his I like. “Somewhere along the line, we seem to have confused comfort with happiness”. Yeah, so get off your butt. Get out of your comfort zone. I think most of us could do with hearing that.
December 4, 2006 at 10:38 · Filed under sport
With all the craze of the Escalade, I forgot to mention that I managed a decent finish in a local race a week prior! The race “NovioduRun” (www.noviodurun.ch) took place in Nyon. Four 2km loops zig-zagging through the old town, the central shopping area, through a small “bois” (forest), leading down to the lake front, and then finally up the steep slope past the Roman ruins back to the Nyon castle, where the start and finish both are.
I strategically chose to run the first two laps easy, and then slowly accelerate on the third and fourth lap. Total distance was 8.1km. The hill at the end of each loop was v steep and probably measures around 200-300m if you include all the zigging and zagging.
I finished 26th overall in a humble time of 31:55. Not too bad considering that I have only done a few weeks of speed (4) this year. The winner ran 25:39, and then one of my tri buddies flew in, in around 27 and change.
Photos here. (flash required)
Results here. (my age group is page 7)
December 2, 2006 at 21:45 · Filed under sport
Harriet ran in the Escalade for the first time in her life. It was quite an experience! I have never seen so many people in the same place in Geneva before - in fact, its the most people I have seen together in one place in Switzerland since I was in Zurich to “experience” the Lake Parade.. yeah. I really enjoyed myself — Seeing my wife flying along during the race, (she even smiled at me once) and … the amazing speed of the elite runners (women running 4.8km in 15:08!!! and the men running 7.2km in 20:01!!!!!!!!!!)
Here is Harriet’s take on the day: I was so nervous but was pleased with my pace for the first half, the second half was more difficult and at times I really just wanted to stop! How unathletic of me… But it ended eventually, thank goodness! I ran 4.8km in 25,44 mins… not great but considering the fact that I had been sick all week and hadn’t really done any serious training, I am quite pleased. Sure I can do better next year!
Stu took some photos of the race; you can view them here:
www.LABELME.org/family/photos/2006/Escalade2006_BIG
or if you have a slower internet connection:
www.LABELME.org/family/photos/2006/Escalade2006
October 23, 2006 at 11:58 · Filed under sport
For any of you who are basketball fans, my all time favorite player (and old hero) is Michael Jordan. I am always hunting for old game footage of him, and recently found North Carolina footage. If you have any games of his, please let me know!
July 31, 2005 at 23:03 · Filed under life, ministry, sport
I’ve always wanted to be a fire fighter. I guess probably never seriously, but the whole “helping people” thing is pretty engraned in me. So anywho - I was running down the canal this evening, and just 1 mile into my run, i look over and this pile of rolled up carpets is on fire. I am thinking to myself, some idiot is trying to burn his garbage uncontained. What a SILLY thing to do. So i am assessing this thing to see if it will contain itself, but my instinct tells me something isn’t right. The flames are now about 5 or so feet in the air, right next to the kitchen window of the council estate appartment, right next to the front door.
I hop the railing, and bang on the door. This lady, probably in her late 60s early 7os, in walker, on oxygen no less, answers from her lazy-boy chair. she lets me in and i tell her to call the fire dept. i ask her for a fire extinguisher,… she doenst have one. so i look out in the garden, and she has a hose. i throw it over the fence and turn it on. SO i here i am dousing this flame which is now more like 7 or 8 feet tall. (*with my mini hose) (interesting) Yes, so anyhow, a guy came by and called the fire dept as well, and they arrived 12 mns later. *(pretty good for inner city ghetto London!)
It was still smoldering so i wasnt comfortable leaving. The fire had stained the brick with smoke, and had cracked the kitchen window, not to mention melting the extractor fan in the kitchen. The house smelt rank. I left after the fire doods got there. I did my run loop and on my way back i stopped and talked to them again. They congratulated me and i felt all warm and fuzzy inside, and they awarded me with the London Gold Medal of Courage and then i had an interview with the mayor and then i got invited to Big Brothe….. —- sorry. yeah, so i went home. all in a day’s work i guess!
i have to thank God daily for the small things in life. How sweet.
