Having an Off Week

No, this is not about a rest week or a down week or whatever you call it.  It's about a week that went sideways on me.

This week my training was hit and miss, particularly on Friday and Sunday.  You would think that those are two days where I would have a lot of time, but you would be wrong.  Here's what I was supposed to do and how the week shaped up.

• Monday: 5 mile Z2 run and 2500 yard swim, done and done.
• Tuesday: Tuesday PIR race. There were some technical difficulties with laptop power at registration so I only got 2 mins of warm up. Needless to say, the race could have gone better. It wasn't bad but not good.
• Wednesday: Track workout 1200's and 400's. I rocked it.
• Thursday: 10 min hill repeats on the bike.  Also killed it. Each successive repeat was stronger and farther that the proceeding one.
• Friday: 8 mile Z1-2 run and 2500 yard swim.  I slept through my alarm and missed the morning swim then misread the run workout and did a Z2-3 run instead.  Most of it was solidly in Z3.
• Saturday: Brick workout with 2.5 hours of biking followed by 45 minutes of running. I took out the Kuota K-factor for this one.  My right scapula got really sore with all that weight bearing.  Also, I had a hard time generating power and getting my heart rate up.  The bike needs some adjustments.
• Sunday: 11 mile run and 1000 yard recovery swim. EPIC FAIL, did neither. I made the mistake of thinking I could fit life around my workouts.  This was yet another lesson why its good to get things done early in the morning.

Having a crappy training week is pretty rough.  It's down right discouraging.  The events of Sunday are particularly bad because a little better planning and everything including the 2-3 hours of workout could have been accomplished. 

When you are down and need some motivation having people to turn to is great.  I've got some good friends who are relentlessly optimistic.  Talk to them and you've got no choice to be the same.  I was super encouraged when I got into work this morning and read Heidi's latest blog post, Remember This.

This week's goal: balance workouts and the rest of my life.  It's going to be tough to fit everything in today, but I'm game.e.

First Century Ever

This weekend I completed my first century ride ever!!! 102.5 miles!! Joining me was three guys from Ironclad Performance Wear, two of my buddies from college (Drew and Joe) and Robbie who I met for the first time on Saturday. The route was Portland to Corbit and then down the old scenic highway to Cascade Locks. There we crossed the Columbia River on the Bridge of the Gods and headed back west to Vancouver. We crossed back over to the Oregon side of the Columbia on the I-205 bridge and finished off the last 10 miles by riding back home.

What an incredible ride! Drew is as strong a rider as he ever was. He and Robbie killed it up some of the hills. The descents were a lot of fun as well. Dropping down from Corbit to the valley floor is a super fast, twisty and tree covered descent. I got to work on my descending skills which are getting much better. The company was great and we took it pretty easy for the most part. By the end I was hurting a little. Joe struggled on some of the climbs, but he and Robbie pulled me through East Vancouver when I was in a little trouble. I can't wait to do it again sometime. I'm not really sure when that might happen because my focus is turning towards shorter events (more on that later).

I tried to take a bunch of video but most of it didn't come out. Here's the two best sections. I'm still working on my camera skills, but eventually I'll be as good as Stephan.

Elma Triathlon Race Report

Last weekend was my first triathlon of the year and my first triathlon post skiing accident. I was pretty stoked and nervous to find out how this was going to workout for me. I've been doing lots of training in the water, on the bike and on the run and even some brick workouts. However I haven' put all three things together until now and that's the big challenge.

I arrived in Elma about an hour before my race just after a big set of rain showers had come through. The ground was wet and parts of the transition were muddy. It was pretty cold out And I wasn't the only one dreading the swim. Thankfully I had my wet suit gloves with me. Keeping my right hand warm is always a challenge. Because of the nerve damage I have bad circulation and it gets cool fast.

The swim was a bit of a disaster. Mass starts are always mayhem for the first 100 meters until the faster swimmers swim over or around the slower ones. I got swam over, kicked in the face and general had to fight for position. I had just finally got in to a nice rhythm and then the turn came. I had to go wide around it because of so many swimmers hugging the corner. On the return I got into a nice rhythm, The side stroke was good and felt strong. However sighting is not my best skill. So I swan a little farther than necessary.

T1 (transition from swimming to biking for you non-triathlon people) did not go well. I rushed out of the water stripping off my wet suit as I went. Or rather trying to take off the wet suit. I got it stuck on my left hand and couldn't get it off. Then it was stuck on my left foot. Then my shoulder brace wouldn't go on. Then the person across the rack said, "You know your nose is bleeding, right?". Then I had a heard time getting my gloves on. Well you get the idea. The more things went wrong the more frustrated I became. My transition time had to be close to 5 mins, truly awful.

Next came the bike and I'm happy to say I crushed it. Super frustrated from the transition debacle I jumped on the bike. The first 2 mins I worked my frustration out and really got my legs working. Then I got into a nice solid high cadence Z3-Z4 pace. I started to pass people right away. First it was people on mountain bikes (good for them, getting out and discovering triathlon) then people on road bikes and finally after the 1/2 way turn around people on time trial and triathlon bikes. Passing a guy rocking a disk wheel was pretty cool. I wrote a pretty big check on the bike and started to think about T2 (bike to run transition) and the 5k run ahead.

T2 went super smooth. Bike parked, gloves and helmet off, shoes on and done! 30 seconds or less. I'm not going to lie. Crushing the bike made the run hard. It took a good mile for my legs to feel ok and I never really got my heart rate to recover. At the run turn 2 guys passed me and I didn't have enough left in the tank to follow them. I got one guy about half a mile from the finish and almost got another who finished 7 seconds ahead of me.

All and all a great race, I'm pretty happy for my first one. Here are the results.

Making more athletic friends

Note: I've been thinking about this for a while and rehashing things in my mind and I've decided to publish this before my race report from this weekends triathlon. Besides results for that aren't up yet and I'll just hold you all in suspense. So here does:

One of the big challenges about being obsessed with training is finding people who understand. Most people don't see spending 11-13 hours a week training as a viable "life style choice". I get a lot of "you don't need to run today, come have beer and pizza with us instead." I usually resist but every once in a while I'm convinced and then that days training is either cut short, of diminished quality or abandon altogether (so far this year that's only happened once). Thus the need to find people who will encourage training and not hinder it.

Two weeks ago after the De Ronde ride on Saturday I went to my first Trail Factor trail run. It was awesome to run with a really serious group. Wow most of them are really fast. I can't keep up with ex cross country runners and collegiate track athletes but it was fun to try. They really inspired and motivated me something that feel has been somewhat lacking in my training lately. We ran Hamilton Mountain, 2700 ft elevation gain over 2.8 miles then a gradual descent for a total distance of 7.2 miles. It was a blast made a bunch of friends. I ran with trail factor again this weekend on Herman Creek trail. It was also totally awesome even though it was raining like crazy. I could really learn to love this trail running stuff.

On Wednesday I had my first group track workout. I met Shawn (my coach, who's leaving me for Texas)and kick ass local runners and triathletes Emily, Zach, and Jen. I'm missing this week because I'm out of town but I plan on staying connected with them. As the season continues I think that group track workouts will have to become a staple in my training.

As I search for a new coach I'm pretty sure that I'll be looking for an environment where I can connect with fellow athletes Particularly runners and swimmers like I have with Portland Velo. I'm pretty self motivated but every once in a while I need someone to help kick me into gear!

This is a rest week and I'm flying to St Louis for a surgery follow up so expect some blogging on that late this week.

De Ronde van Oeste Portlandia - Ouch

I did the De Ronde van Oeste Portlandia this weekend and wow that was hard. Probably the toughest day I've ever had in the saddle. 47 miles and 8000+ feet of climbing. For over 4 hours all I did was climb, descend, repeat. I started with a bunch of Portland Velo teammates but got separated before we even got to the first climb.

Before I left the house I tried to switch out my 11-23 cassette for a 12-25 but could not get the 11-23 off my wheel. I guess that will teach me to get all the way ready the night before. Even though my Cervelo RS has a compact on it I was really wanting that 25 tooth cog. I had to walk part of Bryentwood (22% grade) and and College (24% grade) but I road the rest of the way.

I hooked up with one of my PV buddies about 20 miles into the ride but was unable to hang with him when ever the road really kicked up. Anything above 17% and he was able to ride away from me (stupid 23 tooth cog).

We finished the day up on counsel Crest and it was awesome. 65 degrees, clear and a great day. I'm totally doing this ride again but I'll get a bigger cassette maybe even a 27 and bring more food.

Here's a few video's from the Event, sorry about the quality and the fingers in the screen, its my first time using my camera like this.

Pre Ride


Climbing


Other Riders


At the top Baby (I need to shave and get a hair cut :)

Piece of Cake Race Report

Cherry Pie was a blast for me. The only thing marring the day was Tim getting mixed up in one of the 3 wrecks. He went down not even 1/2 a lap in then had to wait for us to finish. He's ok although his bike needs some work including new bars and wheels.

I car pooled with Michael and Tim up to Woodland and got there really early so we signed in then went to Safeway for some food. After getting all ready we warmed up some and pre road the last 2k or so. The course is flat as a pancake and supper windy. The three of us mad it back to the start line just before our race started so I stripped off the warm-up jacket and left it next to the wheel pit hoping that it would be there when I got back.

The Field was pretty big (51 Riders) and the roads out there are very, very narrow. Plus we had to start at the back. During the roll out I was literally the last rider. Kind of a different experience. I spend most of the first few miles trying to make my way to the front. Finally a gap opened on the right hand side and I was able to really move up. Tim followed me but not close enough and someone jump out then went down taking Tim and 6 others down with him. (Sucky)

The rest of the lap was uneventful a few attempts to break away, none sticking, until about 2k from the finish where 1 guy went, I wanted to bridge up to him but was boxed in. 2 others joined the break away and by the time I got out they were too far up the road to bridge too.

The peleton made a half hearted effort to pull them back but eventually let them go. When the time came to chase we had a really hard time organizing the chase. No one would rotate, we would get a pace line going then some one would get in the rotation but not pull through totally screwing up the chase. Eventually I got on the front and took a monster 5 min pull. We turned the corner into a cross wind and I knew that I needed a rest so I fell back, 10-15 riders went by and I was going to let a few more go before I jumped back in but I looked back and there was no one there, I totally shattered the field. 51 riders had become 15. Once I realized this I didn't have enough left to jump back on the group.

I finished off the last 5 miles with a guy from Capital Velo. The chase group caught 2 of the 3 riders in the break with 400m to go and my teammate finished 10th in the field sprint. I'm pretty sure that they would have never caught the break without my big pull on the back stretch to get the pack really moving but yet again I did way to much work to finish 16th. I need to learn to ride smarter. Oh well next time.

Next week is de Ronde Portlandia (50 miles with 8000+ feet of climbing) Its not a race but a fun ride I'm looking forward to it.