Where did July go????

So July is here and gone...wow that was fast.

The end of June flew by with all the work the last 2 weeks putting on the Damtri. Overall it was a great success. A few bugs to work out but not too bad for a first time event.

After settling down from the Damtri it was time to get ready for the bike leg of the quad games. I was feeling good and ready to set a good time. I rode a 28:50 something here 2 years ago on the gently rolling 12 mile course and I am in much better shape now. Plus I've been putting up times over a minute better than my time 2 years ago at the Presque Isle Time Trials, so I was bound and determined to do a sub 28 minute ride and my goal was 27:30. Alas, it was not meant to be. The start times are supposed to go by alphabetical order and my name put me in the 140's out of 400, or a 9:35am start. Unfortunately there was a lot of weather moving and the wind really started to pick up.

I rode the first 7 miles at a 26 mph pace, conserving for the final 5 miles after the turn around. As soon as I made the turn however I knew I was in trouble as the headwind was awful and I was killing myself to hold 23-24 mph. I had good strong legs and felt great and kept my HR right at 186-187, which meant I was right at my limit where I needed to be, but the wind killed me. Ended up with a 28:50, or about the same time I had 2 years ago. And to cap it all off, I got beat by several people I had beat by 30-90 seconds just 2 weeks earlier that had start times 20-30 minutes before me and did not have to deal with the headwind (and a lot of them had last names that should have put them after me.....hmmmm). Oh well, the people that had the real late starts were really getting a rough go of it though due to the storm that by the end of my ride was almost on top of the course, so it could have been worse. At least I looked good in the new TT Suit from Coach John/Team Continum! Sunday after the Quad TT was the Milton Man Olympic tri in Lake Milton, Ohio. Up at 4 am and off to the races, again.
This was a last minute decision but turned out to be a nice race, and I recognized numerous people that had done the Damtri a few weeks earlier and talked to several of them.

The swim was a 2 loop affair (they also had a sprint going on at the same time) and I took off hard at the gun. I quickly found myself in 2nd place with first place about 10 feet off to my right. I angled over to him to catch his feet but he was going at a blistering pace that I knew I could not hold for both laps, so I let him go and saw another guy about 20 feet to my left get by me too. I settled in and drafted off a 3rd guy for most of the race and came in at 22:13 for the 4th fastest swim.

The bike was a 2 loop course, pretty decent roads except for one spot and with no major hills to speak of other than towards the end of the loop there was one short steep hill. I caught 2 guys (one about 1/2 way through the second loop) and got passed by 2, which I did not like but the legs were a little sore from the previous day's TT. About mile 20 I heard a metal on asphalt sound as something from my bike rattled off and down the road. Later I would find out it was my micro-flate and CO2 cartridge. As I looked down to see what fell off my bike I also realized I had no timeing chip on! Uh-OH! I prayed it was stuck in my wetsuit and figured I'd just have a really long T-1 time!. Got off the bike in around 1:03 or so, averaged somewhere between 23 and 24mph (I later found out they had a problem with the mats so no one got splits between swim end and the race end). Ran into transition and quickly found my timing chip stuck in the bottom of my wetsuit, threw it back on and headed off on the run.

The run was a 2 loop course also, again a nice little run. Short bit through a park/trail, along a main road and then an out and back through some side roads before the last 1/4 mile or so back in the park to the second loop/finish. I felt good on the run and hit the first mile in 6 minutes flat, passing the really fast swimmer guy right out of transition. Kept a good pace for the first lap and did not get passed by anyone, although 1 guy was gaining on me pretty good. Finished the first lap in right around 20 minutes and finally got caught by the fast runner about 1/2 mile into the 2nd lap. Turns out he was one of the guys that raced elite at the Damtri a few weeks earlier. Held my position for the remainder of the run and finished with a 10k of 40 and change, which is a PB for me! I felt I could have gone a little harder but had no one around. Sub 40 is definitely close though. Ended up 5th overall, 1st Male 35-39. They did not have splits but I did have the 4th fastest combined T-1, bike, T-2 and run time.

After Milton man it was just some good solid training weeks. Headed to a beautiful winery down by Seven Springs PA for my cousin Erin's wedding, then came back and got ready for the trip to Lake Placid to volunteer and sign up for Ironman LP 2010, but that's another post.

Rick Gorzynski Memorial Time Trial

Not much to write here, this is held on the exact same course as the Iroquois School District races in the spring and fall. After going 28:05 in the spring I was pretty sure I could do sub 28. Well too much beer and pizza the night before and staying up too late sure didn't help! Burping up bigfoot pizza with sausage and pepperoni for 28 minutes while your heart is averaging above 186 bpm is not fun. Plus I did not start my computer until about a minute into the ride so I did not really know where I stood, just that it hurt like hell the whole time I was riding.

Oh well, results still showed a 3 sec personal best and top 10 finish.

Indiana Co Sprint Triathlon, June 13, 2009

This was a last minute decision. Thursday I decided to go down to Indiana Co and was able to talk Steve Bell and Chip Fuller (co directors/founders/bosses etc...of The DamTri) that it would be a good idea to get up at 4:30am and drive 2 hours and 15 minutes for a 1hr sprint race. The race seemed to be a nice little event from what we could see so we headed out of Meadville in the wee hours of the morning.

We arrived to Yellow Creek State Park about 7:30 or so and registered and got set up without much hastle. There seemed to be a nice little crowd gathering so this had the promise of a fun day.

Swim: .5 Miles, 13:47 (1:34/100yds, 7th Overall, 6th Gender, 1st Age group)

The swim was a straight out and back marked by a continuous string of buoys. Seemed easy enough, although a few people reported that there were some weeds about 100yds out. What they meant by some weeds was a huge weed bed that came clear to the surface and lasted about 1/4 of the swim. Stopped to pick weeds off my goggles/watch several times, as it was like trying to swim on shrubs! Stayed in the 2nd group after 2 guys got a lead after the first couple hundred yards. Just stayed tucked in the draft and had an uneventful swim, other than hitting the same massive weed bed on the way back. Overall the swim felt longer than 1/2 mile though.

Bike: 9.5 Miles, 28:18 (20.1 mph avg, 14th OA, 14th Gender, 3rdAG)

I got on the bike and came out of T-1 with the two other swimmers that I had been with the whole swim. Time to put the head down and get by them and go after the two guys in front of us. The ride started wtih a 1 mile road through the park out to the main road. I was working hard but not gaining at all, and the one guy was pulling away. After we got out of the park and onto the main road it was an out and back that was basically all uphill for 3-4 miles, a short flat section, then back down. As we hit the hill and the road started going up I started feeling worse. I lost sight of the one guy up the road and the other one was pulling away. After a great bike a few weeks ago at Edinboro I was having a really bad day here. Then, to add insult to injury, I got passed and passed easily on the climb. I felt like I was going backwards and there was nothing I could do about it.

This went on until about mile 8, then I started to feel a little better, but by that time I only had 1.5 miles to go through the park. For the first time since I started racing in 2006 I was looking forward to getting off the bike and running because no matter how lousy I feel on the run sometimes it was still going to be better than this bike ride was. Reached T-2 about 30 seconds behind one of the guys that I had swam with.

Run 3.5 Miles, 20:35 (5:53/mile avg, 12th OA, 11 Gender, 2nd AG)

As the run started out I was just glad to be off the bike! The guy (actually it turned out to be a 14 year old wonderkid!) in front of me just kind of stayed about 10-15 seconds out. He kept looking over his shoulder and I was gaining a little at a time but not enough.

The run was a gently rolling out and back with nothing major to speak of by way of climbs. On any slight uphill I would gain a few steps on him, but on the slight downhill his youthful leg speed would pull him away whatever I gained. Overall I felt better and better as the run went on and the few miles ticked off pretty easily for a sprint race (although the course may have been a little shor as I did not feel like I was running sub 6 minute miles).

I was never able to reel the young kid in, but at least I did make him turn around a few hundred times during the race!

Final Results 1:05:07 (8th Overall, 8th Male, 1st AG)

Although I did not have the result I had wanted because of a bad bike, which has been my strongest leg all summer, I was pleased with the overall outcome and how well I ran. Plus, the new kits from coach John were awesome to race in. Some of the most comfortable gear ever! There was some good post race food, a nice little medal ceremony and we were able to talk to about a half a dozen or more people that were signed up for and doing our race on June 28th and were looking forward to the DamTri.