Pushing the envelope

It finally happened, almost 6 years to the day from when it first started.  What happened you ask?  Well, first, some history.

I moved from Seattle to Washington DC on May 1st, 2004 (6 years ago tomorrow) – and when I moved into my first place it was pretty sparse.  How sparse?  Well, let’s look at the moving trucks that pulled up in Seattle then:

Now you may think that would mean I had a lot of junk.  Well…not really.  See, the corporate relocation folks had allotted some 20,000 pounds of stuff to me. All my stuff – which was essentially a handful of boxes, some skies and two kayaks…all fit into the most forward section of the big semi-truck (and was less than 600 pounds).  Realistically, it probably could have all fit crammed into a minivan with the kayaks on top.  Yup, that’s about it.  Nonetheless, they sent out enough space to move the space shuttle.  Here’s the portion of the truck it actually covered:

So, when I got to DC, it looked pretty much like this in my new pad:

Not exactly much there, except that ever-so-stylish lighting fixture in the middle of the room.  The one at eye level that I would run into just about every day.  After creating plenty of welts in my head I removed that fixture and tossed it into the attic, after only a few days of being in the new place.  Just recently though, during that massive attic cleaning session a few weeks ago, I found it again.  It’s now living a new life somewhere else…not in my place.  Anyway…back to six years ago…

My fancy dining set was a camping foldout chair that I found at the grocery store, and a little fold-out TV dining style personal table that I found at Bed Bath and Beyond.  It was stylish.

However, if you buy a place you quickly realize you need all sorts of things you never had a need (or even a need to know about) before that moment.  For example, the need to send all sorts of paper communications to all sorts of people.  Who knew?  So one of the very first items I had to procure was simple a box of envelopes.  Yes, it may sound odd – but if you have to send off paperwork to pay for the house, then an envelope or two quickly becomes a necessity.

Now if you read my little blog often you know that I’m a fairly technology focused kinda guy.  As such I generally despise dealing with the post office.  First off, it opens at about 9AM and closes at 5PM on the dot.  Seriously?  5PM?  Why on earth is it that they make post offices open at useless times of the day – like when everyone is at work.  They should have them open from 5PM until 9AM – I guarantee you more people would make use of it than the other way around.

Anyway…

The reason I mention this is that I rarely use envelopes.  I prefer to do anything and everything via the Internet.  If I can’t do it via the Internet, I’m less likely to keep on doing business with them.  Just the way I am.

So, I had wondered way back then how long exactly it would take me to go through that box of envelopes.  Sorta like how many licks to the center of a tootsie pop. 

Well, earlier this week, the Girl found the box empty.  It looked poor, sad, tired, and…well…empty.  It had gone the distance.  120 envelopes later its job had been done – and it was onto other exciting ventures, such as the recycling bin.  Perhaps in it’s new life it’ll be something exciting…you know…like a toilet paper roll or something.

It turns out that’s it’s pretty much exactly six years to the bottom of the envelope box.  Now, off to Staples I’ve gotta go to get a new box.  I shouldn’t need another one then until at least 2016.  Woohoo!

Have a good weekend all!  And good luck to those doing Ironman St. George on Sunday!

Averting disaster in the Dark Hills

Anytime you have 2-3 hours of workouts to do on a weeknight, you have to plan a bit.  Most of that planning for me falls into two buckets – scheduling of the actual workout itself, and scheduling my caloric intake during the day.

That calorie scheduling is key to having both a strong workout, but more importantly (in my mind) avoiding any sort of unnecessary diversions to the woods due to untimely urges.  Making the situation slightly worse is that my Tuesday night workout is hill repeats…3 miles away from my house.  Which means that I’m nowhere near a bathroom (but near a forest), and since hills are involved – there’d a lot of pounding and jiggling, something less than ideal.

Of course, the best laid plans always go awry…starting with that scheduling piece.  My hope was to be starting the workout around 5PM.  With a 32 minute bike and then a 90+ minute run, that’d have us done in the 7-8PM range.  Not bad.

Except…a conference call that I started in the morning, went into the afternoon, and then into the evening – almost some 12 hours in total.  Which, meant it was 8:01PM before I got on the bike.  This was gonna make for a fun night…

The bike/trainer itself is simply a 10 minute warm-up, followed by a series of building sets, increasing wattage and thus eventually working your way into upper Z4 zones.

With that out of the way it was time to hit the road.  Now’s when we get to the caloric schedule.  By this time of the day all bets were off as to when certain activities may want to occur, so I did the only thing I could think of: I created a little ‘disaster recovery kit’.

(No, that’s not simply a stash of drugs waiting for a drop – despite what it may look like.   Actually at one point on one of the repeats I saw a car stop next to it (it was near a stop sign) for an extended period of time, I was worried they were checking it out.)

Nope – it’s glorious TP – but even better is that I have it in a little Ziploc baggie, keeping it nice and dry.  And I’ve combined it with a rubber band so it won’t go anywhere.  My hope was that by actually carrying TP for once, I wouldn’t need it. Whereas if you don’t carry it, you absolutely need it.  Cause that’s just the way things work.  I’d end up leaving this near the base of the hill while I do my repeats…close to a nice bit of forest.

So with that, onto the road I went.  Like the bike preceding it, I started off with 10 minutes of Z2 before 3 x 5 minutes each building into the next zones – eventually working the pace down to just about 6/flat on rolling terrain.  I was pretty happy with that.  It was a ‘pushed’ pace, but still nowhere near all-out pace.

From there, it was time to start the hills.  Five of them.  Each one being just shy of a mile long.   You may remember the cool elevation profile I did of the hill back in this post a few months ago while having to run them covered in snow and ice.

(I talk about how I create the above image in that post as well)

The steepness varies from shallow at the beginning to very steep towards the end.  I then have to crest the hill and keep on pushing on the flats for about 60 seconds to maintain HR, which, btw – is actually really difficult.

In order to maintain that HR when I crest that hill I was in some cases having to drop the pace down sub-5.  Obviously, if I had to run a long-long way, this would quickly slow down (or I’d probably just keel over and die).

Now…each time I have to go down the hill, it induces pounding…and not just on the legs.  Lots of things are shaking..that I don’t want shaking.  And after the hills I still have to run almost three miles back home, including a set of 4xInterval Sprints – which again are not at all ideal in the Me vs Potential Output scenario.

But luckily…the TP trick seems to have worked, and in the end – the mere act of carrying it along seems to have staved off the ‘actual act’.  Woot!  Plus, it totally beats having to do the workout on a hotel treadmill.

And sometime a bit after 10PM, we were done…and exhausted.  These late night workouts are tough!

Understanding the importance of Garmin firmware updates

One of the more common questions/comments that I answer on many of my review posts are technical in nature – and often times covering specific issues or problems a person is running into.  As a result I end up doing a fair bit of research most of the time to try and track down the issue – or at least lead folks in the right general direction of a solution.

Along the way I’ve noticed that a LOT of peeps end up having issues that are actually already solved.  This is good though – first, because it usually resolves the issue(s) for them immediately.  But secondly, it shortens how long I have to spend searching the intertubes for an answer. :)

So I decided to take Garmin’s four most popular triathlon/cycling devices and put together a bit of a review of all the updates that have come out for them since their respective product launches.  And while not every issue on earth has been solved, you can see quite a few have.  So with that, let’s get the show on the road!

Garmin Edge 500 (Cycling)
For fun, let’s just start with one of Garmin’s newest devices – the Edge 500.  This handy little cycling computer became available to the public around roughly December 15th, 2009 – just some 5 months ago.  And like most new computing devices it had its share of initial teething problems, but many of those were resolved within the first few months.  Not only that though – there were a number of small (and large) features added along the way.  Between December and February there were three firmware updates.  First, they fixed a slew of bugs:

- Increased detection radius for Elevation Points and added a detection message.
- Improved Course processing and error handling.
- Removed limitations on the displayed Power Calibration Value.
- Fixed some issues with setting files not being saved properly.
- Improved Vertical Speed values.
- Corrected issue transferring heart rate zones and power zones from Garmin Connect and Garmin Training Center.
- Corrected issue transferring New Leaf Profiles from Garmin Training Center.
- The bike odometer correctly updates during an activity.
- Cleanup of TCX conversion issues for courses.
- Corrected issues related to courses.
- Corrected issue with distance alert performance.

But, as any software engineer will tell you, it’s not just about fixing bugs.  Users want new features too – and Garmin typically adds a number of them along the way (though of course, folks always want more!).  For example in the Edge 500’s case, the biggie was adding Workout support, which was done back in the February.  In addition, here’s a few others that have been added since then:

- Updated ANT+ power calibration page.
- Workouts have been added.
- Improved smart recording algorithms. This will improve track point dropping during turns.
- Added %FTP Power, 30s Average Vertical Speed, and Maximum Speed as new Data Fields.
- Added notification messages for Courses, Workouts, and Metabolic Profiles.
- Added the ability to import .NLF New Leaf files.

See…all sorts of updates going down.  Now you’re probably thinking about when the last time you updated your Edge 500 was, aren’t ya?  Well, you can grab the latest update for your little blue friend here.

Garmin Forerunner 310XT (Triathlon/Running)
Now, let’s take a look at the triathlon focused watch – the Forerunner 310XT.  It’s been out just shy of a year now.  In that time span there has been four fairly significant updates to the watch.  Let’s start with some of the bugs:

- Fixed issues related to files not uploading to computer (CRC issue).
- Fixed problem with invalid weight values being recorded from weight scale.
- Improved weight scale searching response time.
- Fixed issue with multisport lap error when switching from Run to Bike.
- Improved elevation readings and added elevation related fields (Total Ascent, Total Descent and Vertical Speed).
- Improved processing of scheduled workouts.
- Improved processing of advanced workouts.
- Fixed issue when trying to save a waypoint without a GPS position fix.
- Minor translation updates for certain languages.
- Fixed file corruption that was causing transfer failures with Garmin Ant Agent.
- Recovery HR message will now only show when it is supposed to.
- ANT+ power data improvements.
- Improved execution of courses.
- Fixed various minor issues.
- Improved transfers with Garmin ANT Agent.
- Fixed Goal transfer issues.
- Fixed History transfer issues.
- Increased activity memory available.
- Improved Course performance and stability.
- Improved Foot Pod performance and stability.
- Improved Workout alert tones and vibrations.
- Fixed History display of data for an activity that has not been reset.
- Improved Auto Pause when using a GSC10.
- Durations alerts can no longer be set to 0.
- Fixed New Leaf fat calories accumulation and transfers.
- Added safeguards to correct issues where a unit would not power on.

Whew!  That was a lot!

And on the new features side, they’ve been quietly adding a number of items as well there:

- Added Key Lock feature (Press the Mode and Up keys at the same time to turn on and off).
- Added support for ANT+ Fitness Equipment.
- Added enable menu options for Weight Scale and Fitness Equipment.
- Added a Memory Details feature to the History menu.
- Implemented sport-specific Totals menu and functionality
- Courses can now be scaled.
- Map coordinates can now be displayed on the map page.
- Added warnings when Activity memory is getting full.
- Changing bike profiles will now vibrate and/or play a tone.
- Countdown timer has been added in Other sport.

So if you have the little orange watch, you can grab your updates here.

Garmin Edge 705 (Cycling)
In general you’ll find that cycling users are a bit more of a demanding lot of folk than the triathlon people.  I don’t know why it is, but when it comes to unhappiness expressed over issues, the cycling folks seem to get what they want…pronto.  Perhaps it has to do with Team Garmin…or maybe cyclists in general can chase you down longer than a runner or triathlete swimmer can…

Anyway...since it’s release the Edge 705 has had a whopping TEN firmware updates since it’s release.  Even more impressive – it’s had 115 listed fixes/updates in that time span.  Here’s just a tiny snippet of those bugs:

- Fixed inaccurate elevation when moving to and from areas with distinctly different altitudes or atmospheric pressures.
- Fixed issue where workouts using power zones based on percent of FTP or heart rate zones based on percent of maximum HR were saved incorrectly.
- Improved power and speed data recording to minimize spikes.
- Restructured activity logging to reduce the number of invalid TCX files
- Fixed issue where random characters were displayed in list before course names loaded
- Fixed issue with speed targets not working properly in Advanced Workouts
- Fixed occasional issue where a corrupted history file could be created

And, on the new features side – here’s a small subset of the total collection of new features added.  Out of all the devices out there, I’m pretty sure the Edge 705 has had the most new features over it’s life span.  And more than just new features – but new features that are actually useful (such as power averaging):

- Added more power meter support.
- Added progress bar for reading new Saved Ride data on powerup.
- Added 3 and 30 second moving average power data fields.
- Added ability to set averaging method for power and cadence
- Added ability to use waypoint elevation as the starting elevation for an activity when the user starts within approximately 30m of this waypoint.
- Added Max Power, Last Lap Max Power, and Kilojoules fields.
- Added SiRF InstantFix support to increase speed of initial GPS fix.
- Added a 'Cities' item to the find menu

So if you have the little mapping Garmin, then go check out this page for the latest deets.

Garmin 305 examples:
If you’ve made it this far I’m going to spare you the MASSIVE list of updates the Garmin Forerunner 305 has had over the past few years, because, I think I might break the interwebs if I tried to post the entire fix list on one page.  So here’s a few samples of the bugs that have been knocked out:

- Fixed problem where averages for heart rate and cadence could include data from when the timer was auto paused.
- Fixed problem where unit could sometimes shutdown when setting up a time and pace/speed quick workout.
- Fixed problem with deleting history items based on time in certain time zones.
- Fixed problem with displaying interval durations and repetitions data in history if the workout had warmup and cooldown steps.
- Improved display of warnings when unit is out of storage for laps.
- Fixed problem where the history for the current sport was sometimes not displayed correctly when creating a course.
- Improved too slow/low and too fast/high alarm tones to be more distinguishable.
- Improved timing of alarm tones.
- Improved handling of Courses containing an out and back segment or a loop.
- Improved auto zoom on the Course elevation profile page to scale the y-axis along with the x-axis.
- Plus about 75 others…really.

And on the new features side – there’s again a massive list there, so I’ll pick apart some of the highlights (and remember, a slew of updates are aimed at people outside of the good ol’ USA):

- Added support for New Leaf Fitness data.
- Updated Daylight Saving Time for new start and end date in the U.S. and Canada.
- Added new time zones for Mexico.
- Added feature to alert user when they are back in the desired zone of a workout after being out of it.
- Added feature to snooze alarms for three minutes or until the next step of a workout (whichever comes first) if the mode and enter keys are pressed simultaneously immediately after an alarm sounds.
- Improved instantaneous pace reading to be smoother and more accurate.
- Improved high pace, low pace, workout step complete, time alert, and distance alert beeps.
- Added quick selection of indoor mode (GPS off) by pressing and holding the mode button.
- Added display of house icon on menu bar when using device indoors with GPS off.

If you have the 305 (little red), then you can get all your updates here.

The Last Bit:
Now, as anybody who’s ever worked with a computer knows – no device is perfect.  And even all of these devices above still have their little quirks or issues with them.  In many cases, those are solvable via a quick visit to the Garmin Forums – where folks gets quite a bit of support from others in tracking down and resolving issues.  From there some of the more commonly run into issues combined with those from Garmin Support make it into the queue for the device folks to get fixes/updates out on.

In the meantime – you can probably improve your device experience through a simple update that only takes a few minutes…go forth and enjoy!

A meaty weekend

This weekend was full of all assortment of activities – from the usual swim/bike/run to cooking up a storm on Saturday night.

We start with a 10 mile run on Saturday morning along the Potomac river on the Mt. Vernon Trail.  The weather was perfect for running – a touch bit cool, but not too cold.  The route meanwhile was a simple out and back affair, which I personally find much easier to get my head around than a larger loop type course.

This semi-up and down course led to a bit of out of zone running, which I subsequently heard about from Coach, post run – for being too much out of zone. :(

Immediately after running we went straight to the pool to knock out the swim for the day.  It was 3,700 yards non-stop, finishing up with a 700 yard time trial.  The TT was faster than any of my previous ones at that distance (well, except the ones in the wetsuit, but those don’t count).  Good times all around.

(Sometimes the water pictures come out really sketchy…this would be one of those times)

And the best part?  We were done with the workouts for the day by 11:30AM.  Wootage!

As I waited for The Girl to finish up in the locker room I wandered over to the ice rink to see what all the racket was.  Turns out they were having a junior figure skating competition.

It was interesting watching the kids (who were astoundingly good for how young they were) – but it was more interesting watching the parents.  The Girl and I suspect a bit of the beauty pageant parental pushing has bled over to this sport, just by watching some of the interactions.  It was also interesting that the parents clapped when both the kids completed the jumps, but also when they crashed and burned.

Anyway…

By time I got back to the house, Coach had noticed that my weight had been automagically uploaded to Training Peaks from the Withings Scale I’ve been testing, from earlier in the morning.  Last week they added a new feature to automatically sync weight to your Training Peaks account from the Withings Scale.  And you can separate out different users on the scale to different Training Peaks accounts.  Pretty cool!

The only catch is as of now Body Fat % isn’t transferred automatically, so hopefully that gets addressed soon.  Either way – still pretty cool!

Later on that night Lindsey and Carl wandered on over and we cooked up quite a storm.  They were actually going to join us last weekend for the RV Road Trip and Rumpus Race, but then due to one of them coming down with the Plague, that potential incubation situation was called off by the CDC.

So, we made up for it this weekend with creating a small disaster area of our own in the kitchen and cooking up all sorts of stuff:

(Lindsey made a strawberry balsamic salad and dressing and then some sweet potato strips, Carl put together the burgers from scratch, The Girl knocked out the stuffed mushrooms and I made some strawberry lemonade and largely inedible cornbread…no idea what went wrong there.)

And finally…Sunday.

Today brought the bike (and a short run-off).  We had planned to go south to knock out the bike ride, but with thunderstorms threatening we wimped out and instead hammered out a long trainer ride watching an unwatched Celebrity Apprentice (about 2.5 hours).  In reality, the trainer rides Coach puts together for us are far more demanding than the simple outdoor rides.  Though, what’s even more demanding is watching Celebrity Apprentice for two straight hours WITH the commercial breaks.  We didn’t skip over them in hopes it would make the time go by faster.  But geez…that makes the show seem REALLY long.

While getting my bike on the trainer I noticed that if you don’t hook it up right – you risk injury to yourself or others (or my TV).  See – it says so – just figured you’d like to know.  Kinda a public service announcement.

Afterwards it was off onto a rather quick run before coming back and lounging around in the thunderstorm-less blue skies.

That also made for an ideal time to finally get around to cleaning off the mud on the mountain bikes from last December’s massive mountain bike mud fest we did.

You do remember that whole scene right?  The mud and the movie of The Girl making it across the great lakes of semi-frozen mud?  It was awesome.

Anyway…have a good week all!

Weekly Mailbag – April 24th, 2010

Here’s this week’s edition of the weekly mailbag.  This is a weekly series where I feature a handful of the e-mailed questions I received from the previous week or so.  I try and pick a wide variety of questions. Some are technical in nature, some sport related, and sometimes all sorts of other randomness – as you’ll see below.

This week’s mailbag covers the following topics:

1) How to turn off that annoying automatic opening of Garmin Training Center
2) How to trim/edit workouts that have accidental chunks of time/distance on them
3) Choosing between the FR101 and FR305 for petite runners
4) Questions on cooking hard boiled eggs using Sous Vide

Question #1:
From Steve-

“So I'm slowly figuring out my new 305 which works fine.  I have not been able to find out on the the Garmin Support website how to tell GTC NOT to auto load - it does not seem to be on the User menu, there are no Preferences I can find, and it's not in the Help in GTC - Google was no help - you said this was what you did, but how, do you remember?”

This is controlled via gStart.exe, a small taskbar application that runs and automatically opens up GTC when the Forerunner 305 is connected (or any USB Garmin device).  It's normally located at C:\Garmin\gStart.exe, which...you could just rename...to something like gStartNoStart.exe and that'll solve it. ;)

Or the cleaner way is you can go to Start > Run and type 'msconfig', once it’s launched click on the Startup tab and deselect 'gStart.exe' from the list.  Restart whenever it’s convenient.  Simple as that.

For those with ANT+ wireless devices (FR405/310XT/FR60), you can simply select not to open GTC in the ANT Agent control panel, using the below checkbox:

Hope this helps!

Question #2:
From Brown-

“Do you know how to delete data from a Forerunner 305 tracked workout. I was doing a 30 minute run and pressed the start/stop button at the end. It stopped, but then a couple of minutes later I noticed that it has started back up again. The extra data was recorded as part of that "lap" and it has impacted my average heart rate. Is there a way to deleted data at the end of a workout so that I only have data for the first 30 minutes, not the fully recorded 36 minutes?”

You unfortunately can’t do it in Garmin Connect, Garmin Training Center or Training Peaks.  But…

You can however do it in Sport Tracks (Free), as I semi-regularly make the mistake myself of either forgetting to turn it off – or accidentally turning it on later on – I tend to do this a lot.  To fix this, you can just trim the end off of the activity, using the Edit > Split activity option.  Then using the below wizard simply split the activity at the point right before it started again and delete the spare (leftover) portion.

While there isn’t a way to do delete unwanted chunks in Training Peaks, I just simply highlight the relevant portion in the graph view, and then look at the stats on the left hand side.

Question #3:
From Claire-

“I want to upgrade the type of running data I get (currently using the Nike+), but I’m still really undecided on which way to go.  I’m a casual runner (50 miles or less a month).  I run both outside and on a treadmill.  I’m not interested using it for biking or swimming.  I was excited reading your review on the 110, but then saw it wouldn’t work on the treadmill.  I’m fairly petite – 5’2” and I’m afraid the 305 might feel like doing bicep curls.  Any suggests on which way I should go?”

I think you’ll find the Forerunner 305 isn’t too big for you.  The Girl is about your height as well, and she got used to it in roughly 30 seconds.  Most folks find that while it looks big from afar, once they put it on they don’t notice it after a minute or less of running.

As for Forerunner 305 vs the new Forerunner 110, I’m still recommending the 305 over the 110 for almost all cases.  While the 110 is smaller, the feature set is severely cut compared to the 305.  That said, if you’re a casual runner then the 110 is pretty much the target audience for that watch.  Unfortunately, like you said they aren’t enabling the use of foot pod (yet anyway), which is one of your requirements for a treadmill. :-(

Keep in mind that most places (including Amazon) allow you to return it if you don’t like it – which is always the way to go!

Question #4 (Bonus Question):
From Sean in DC-

“I like your Sous Vide project a lot. Could you put liquids into the vacuum-sealed packaging (like a marinade or sauce) and cook it with all of that in there? Can you hard-boil an egg in there and report back?”

Yes, to some degree you can put liquids in there.  Having a bit of marinade isn’t too much of an issue.  The challenge is that the vacuum sealer tries to vacuum the air out, which can result in the liquids getting vacuumed out as well (which is a mess btw).  Far more expensive chamber sealers solve this problem, but that’s not what I’m using.  The alternative that many folks do is simply freeze the extra marinade in a small ice cube tray and then put it in the bag frozen, as it’ll melt shortly after being put in the hot water, but at least it’s in the bag.

As for the eggs, yup – in fact, that’s one area people are really all excited about with Sous Vide.  Specifically, the ability to make soft-boiled eggs at exactly whatever consistency you want.  For example, check out this mother of all soft-boiled egg posts, complete with math equations, pictures and many many eggs.  As for hard boiled eggs, you can do that just fine too.  I did two just for fun, but honestly – it took 75 minutes and was way more hassle than it was worth compared to just a simple pot of boiling water. :)

Also, oddly enough the brown egg came out slightly overdone.  It was originally the same size, but my hard-boiled egg peeling skills suck, so it ended up being considerably smaller by time mission was completed.  No idea why.

Recent Mailbags:

Inaugural Mailbag – April 17th, 2010:
- Hydration on the run
- Garmin Footpod in tunnels
- WKO+ thoughts and ponderings

The Rumpass in Bumpass 2010 Race Report

If there was ever a race to do based on name alone, this would be it.  I mean – really – how many races have the ASS word not once – but TWICE in name of the race?  The RumpASS in BumpASS.  Brilliant!

Now, the race is actually held in Bumpass, VA (which, btw, seems like a good time to point out the folks in these parts like having ass in their town names – for example – Manassas…which I just simply call Man’s Ass).  This little town (Bumpass) is about 90 minutes south of Washington DC on the shores of Lake Anna.  This is the same lake that I race at early season last year (though different race), as well as the same lake that The Girl and I went out on our first bike ride together…and got horribly lost…and ended up going 55 miles instead of the planned 15.

Since we had our little RV setup the night before, the race morning commute was pretty easy.  Just to re-iterate how close we were, I refer to the satellite imagery:

I got into the transition area pretty quickly and got to work setting up my little station.  It was a pretty clean setup with just the core essentials present.  I tossed my transition bag to the side of transition along the fence (which is permitted and recommended btw).

Meanwhile, everyone else got busy bumbling around trying to take care of last minute items.  I should point out that the race started at 10AM…which is pretty sweet as far as keeping things nice and relaxing.

From there it was off to the swim area for the swim start…which looks identical to the below:

I went ahead and got my wetsuit on and kerplunked myself into the nice ‘warm’ 66*F waters to get in about a 10 minute warm-up.  As I always mention, getting into the water AHEAD of your race wave is absolutely critical to ensuring a successful swim start.  Even if you don’t swim anywhere at all, just getting your body temperature re-adjusted is important.

The Swim:

At almost 10:00AM on the dot the race director counted down and the buzzer went off for the first wave…which included me.  I started on the front line and that seemed to work moderately well.  I wasn’t swam over very much…but I was very much out-swam.

I noticed it about 100 yards into the swim during one of the sighting strokes.  I was way the heck back from the leaders.  Now, it’s no secret my level of swim ability is sorta low, but I was getting pummeled here from a pace standpoint.  And while there was a bit of chop – I actually do BETTER than average in rough waters – see my crazy Rhode Island 70.3 swim as proof of that.

Nonetheless, I kept on plodding along.  I was frequently wandering off course and not quite on the best line.  In general it just wasn’t a very good swim for me.  Not quite sure why, as I had some rockin’ fast times on Thursday evening in the pool in the wetsuit – like almost sub-6 minutes for 500 yards.  I was pretty happy with that time. :-/

Anyway, I eventually found land again, and climbed out over the embankment and onto the grass for the very short run into transition.

My total swim time…26:20.  Ouch.

My transition to bike wasn’t horrible though, but wasn’t as fast as it could have been either.  I did make a very conscious decision to forgo the shoes on the pedals and flying mount due to the start line configuration.  The mount/dismount line was directly into an incline riddled with spray-painted potholes – which were just ripe for crash and burn.  In fact, later when I would come into transition off the bike, the guy directly in front of me front flipped his bike trying to dismount.

T1 time: 1:37

The Bike:

I got up to pace relatively quickly on the bike, just chugging along holding just under 300w – right on race plan.  I was moving pretty quickly despite the occasional gust of wind, but my only real focus was holding the wattages on the race plan.  One interesting side note to be on the pointy end of the race pack is that it’s actually kinda lonely from a race standpoint.  Meaning, when you’re back a few waves you have a lot of people you can target and try and catch up to.  But when you’re both the first wave, and out of the water relatively quickly, there’s just not many peeps out there on the bike course – and those that are, are well spread out.

So the majority of the first loop of the rolling course was spent by myself, with only a few early passes of folks that were better swimmers than I.

The second loop however is where some of the action started.  By this point almost everyone was out of the water and on the bike, so there was some 600 people out in front of me on the loop – providing plenty of motivation to keep on pushing.

The race plan called for a slight bump in wattage to just over 300w for the last 10 miles, so I dutifully did that.  Though, my legs were starting to fall apart a bit, and I couldn’t maintain my heart rate as high I needed it to be.  Sorta odd.  I think relatively poor nutrition the day prior was having an impact here.

But, I was at least pacing a number of people…and other random things.  At one point a nasty looking tractor rolled out onto the road in front of me.  Lots of blades and things that could easily make me look like a canister of neatly cut Pringles.  He eventually pulled over a bit ahead of me and I was able to legally pass him (on the left, not the right, and not crossing the line).   The problem was he wasn’t done yet being a menace to my race.

That tractor decided to start chasing me a bit, which resulted in some of the highest heart rates and power numbers of the race.  for example, I defer you to the chart below:

See that little section above – the max wattage there is approaching 1,000 watts – at 854 watts.  I was really really really trying to ensure I could beat this tractor up that hill.  I know if I could make it to the top of the hill, that I could gain a big enough of a lead going back down the other side to make it hard for him to catch me (and disrupt my race).

It’s right about this time that the camera guy happened to show up at the top of the hill.  Unfortunately, he missed the shot of me (actually I know he got it cause I talked to him after the race, I just can’t find it in lost and found, or it came out bad afterall) – nonetheless, you can see me in the background (in red circle) struggling to stay ahead of the monster-tractor.

Anyway, the rest of the bike was fairly bland in comparison.  My heart rates were low, but my overall power numbers were significantly higher – and I blew away my power numbers from my last Olympic distance race last fall by more than 40w.  Coach put together this quick little comparison below using Training Peaks.

Final time on the bike (as reported by race officials) was 1:03:01, which adjusted for the actual length of the course is 23MPH.  I think the course was a tad bit short – about a mile I’d guess though.

I just wish I was feeling less exhausted and would have been able to sustain the HR zones I should have been for the bike, would have been much faster.

That said – it’s SO freakin awesome to be done with the bike in about an hour…and not still be out there for another 4+ hours. :)

T2 was accomplished in a respectable 49 seconds – the fastest of the day was only 9 seconds faster.

The Run:

I was theoretically looking forward to the run, as I was sorta hoping to try and break the sub-6 barrier for the first time in a triathlon 10K.  And things started off pretty promising, the first 10-12 minutes were at 6:06/mile average, which included the semi-steep climb out of transition and up into the woods running across tree limbs.  So I was happy with that.

From there though things started to unravel a bit.  My HR was a good solid 10-15 BPM off of where it should have been (which was higher btw).  And my paces started to dramatically fall apart. It was as if I just ran out of battery.  Kaput.

My paces stared dropping pretty significantly, down into the high 6’s – far from what I should have been running on this rolling course.  Though I would say the course is more difficult than simple elevation charts would lead you to believe, you see see the rollers below – up and down as it turns off to the left in the distance:

The turnaround for the first portion of the loop was placed nicely up the hill below, just beyond the water stop:

I made it back from the first out and back section and a blog reader shouted out my name – which took a moment to realize they were yelling my name, and then another moment to figure out why, and where it was coming from.  I appreciate the cheers!

(Minor side note to photographers: When I buy your photo – like above – please don’t put your logos on it unless I ask for it, it’s sorta really annoying.  I guess I need to add that to my rant post.)

From there it was back out across the rolling section.  By this point a number of folks were coming of the bike, which did again provide some encouragement to try and track folks down.  Once I got to the outer turnaround again I saw the Girl almost to the same turnaround on her first loop.  So that was good!

By time I hit mile 5 I was a bit more happy with the situation, mostly because I was almost done.  At around mile 5.5 another guy in my age group made a pass by me.  He was running just slightly faster than I was.

At this point I had a rough count on who was ahead, but wasn’t exactly sure – and really didn’t want to give up a podium spot.  So, I latched on – you can see the bump in HR’s below where the black line is:

My hope was that if I could hang with him until the trees (which was a quarter mile wooded section on trails), I could mentally hang with him to the finish.  At which point I could probably stomach an all out sprint.

We got to the trees successfully, without him making any sudden moves, and the pace wasn’t too bad once I latched on.  It was certainly causing my HR to climb, but I was able to hold.  And he wasn’t really increasing the pace any, it was staying about constant.  So life was good.

Meanwhile I was plotting my final sprint.  It really boiled down to one question: Could he sprint?  Cause I know I sure as hell can’t.  I was also careful to keep him just a foot or two ahead of me, I didn’t want him to make any surprise moves and pass me.  In my mind, recovering from a sudden pass is incredibly difficult.

As we cleared the trees we had a downward section to navigate before hitting the final couple hundred yards to the finish.  This may be a good time to point out that at the end of every hill and interval workout I do, Coach has me run 4x200m at full tilt.  So, I’m really actually quite proficient at running 200m after a long workout.  Though, that still didn’t answer whether or not he could sprint.

So, just as we hit the last ditch/obstacle thing and were almost out of the clearing but still going downhill I went for it, and simply ran like a bat out of hell.  The area I started was about where the trees were. You can see the blue line above in the pace graph skyrocket to 3:18/mile.

I ran like there was no tomorrow all the way in.  By time I got to about the point below, I looked back and realized he was nowhere to be found.

Success!  I had ditched him.  I got to the finish by myself…and about 10 seconds later…completely and totally lost my lunch.  And my breakfast.  And everything else in between.

The ground below along the fence is now well watered…and fertilized.

But it was worth it. :)

Run time: 40:30

Total splits:

Swim: 26:20 (10th in AG, 72nd overall split…ouch)
T1: 1:37
Bike: 1:03:01 (3rd in AG, 10th overall bike split)
T2: 0:49
Run: 40:30 (2nd in AG, 16th overall)

Done: 2:12:15 (2nd in AG, 18th OA)

Awards:

After a quick check of the first page of results, it looked like it might be good enough for an age group podium finish.

And sure enough, a bit later – the announced the Men’s 25-29 age group awards – putting me in 2nd place within my AG (after they removed the top 3 finishers).

We gots ourselves some nice big beer mugs out of it – complete with the Rumpass in Bumpass log on it:

Oh, and as for the Girl…she gots herself a beer mug too:

From there, it was back to the RV just behind the bushes…to relax…and ponder what to put in my mug.

So all in all, not a bad way to start off the outdoor triathlon season for the year.  Plus, it was a PR by about 30 seconds or so.  The one thing I really like about these shorter races is that you’re whole year isn’t tied up in one single event.  I’ve got another race in three weeks (Rev3 Knoxville), and I’ll be able to take all my lessons learned from this event (Nutrition day before, less navigational charting on swim) and apply them there to hopefully get things really kicked into gear.

Oh – and lastly – thanks to everyone over the course of the weekend who stopped by or said Hello – it’s pretty amazing how many people out there read my little slice of the world.  Glad to be able to put some faces to names and hear how your races went.  And from the conversations, it sounds like things generally went pretty well for everyone.  Woot!

And finally, here’s the race shirt:

Thanks for reading!