Opening weekend at the outdoor pool

This weekend was opening day at our little town’s outdoor pool.  The outdoor pool is only open from about now until September, and even within that window – only open on weekends to the general public, at least until the school kids get out in another three weeks.

I know for some of you that have outdoor pool access year round, the concept of an outdoor pool may not be that exciting.  But for me…I love it!

It’s just something different to break up the routine, and the otherwise sterile indoor world of my regular pool.  So between now and Labor day, I take advantage of every opportunity I can get to swim within the handful of lanes they have.

The water is only about 3’ deep, which means that it gets surprisingly warm early in the season.  For example, this weekend it was quite comfortable, despite our only major heat wave having just hit the last few days.  The good news is that they pump in colder water as needed to keep it the right temperature.

Much of the entertainment in the pool comes from watching the never ending stream of kids that pay the $1.00 to use the pool (us grown-up kids pay a whopping $2).  Like much of the surrounding neighborhoods it’s an eclectic mix of the privileged and the not as lucky.  Though, at least within the bounds of the chain link fence surrounding the pool – everyone just gets along.  Belly flops from the diving board in the deep end seem to be a common bond across all races.

I came on Monday hoping it would be a bit calmer, to get some photos for the RCX5 review, showing some of the swimming functionality…but the water was a bit murky after a day filled at capacity (we actually had to wait 10 minutes to enter, since a few dozen people had to leave before we’d be allowed in).  The doubt the highest temps of the year brought out everyone in droves.

No worries though, I’ll do what I can with these and some other shots I have (these thankfully, aren’t the best ones…I’ve gotta save something for the review, after all!).

The rest of the day was largely spent tending to my meat.  You know, my BBQ Pulled Pork (recipe here).  It’s somewhat of an annual tradition.  The Girl actually started the two large pork hunks the night prior, getting them rubbed and injected with goodness (no, not EPO like Pro Cyclists, but rather an apple juice based mix). 

Then I got up early on Monday to get them started on their 12 hours journey.

The key to pulled pork on a BBQ is to know the internal temperature.  So I had a wireless thermometer that I had picked up on Woot.com last year, yet hadn’t used sense.  As we were sitting around waiting for it to reach it’s final temperature the thing started talking to us – literally telling us that our dinner was almost ready.  Craziness!

But I also had another one that was just simpler, as the butt is over a foot across, so I measure in two places.

A short bit later we got to work shredding it.  I wasn’t quite as happy with the quality of the meats this year.  They were picked up from Restaurant Depot, which normally is good with meats – but this one was far fattier than usual, with probably 50-75% of the chunk fat.  Rather disappointing.  While we had enough for everyone, the amount of meat we had bought should have made enough for everyone to go home with considerable leftovers.

Oh well…the noms were still good!

Lastly, in honor of Memorial Day, I leave you with this photo I took here in DC, just a touch over 10 years ago during the Cherry Blossom festival.  Let us never forget the sacrifices so many have made.

80 Miles of warm cycling and farming fun

You know what’s nice about not doing an Ironman race this year?  Not having to bike 112+ miles during training.  Yup, with my longest race this year being a Half-Iron with ‘only’ 56 miles as the bike leg, my training is considerably shorter than in an IM year.  And by ‘shorter’, I mean 80 miles.  Which, was exactly how long I was out for on Saturday.

Despite our best attempts at getting up early, my desire to leave the bed as the alarm clock hit 6:45AM was incredibly low.  So low that somehow, after about 28 snooze button presses later it was 10:45AM.  No worries, I’d get to enjoy the fullness of the warm weather for all it was worth!

By time we packed, ate breakfast, drove and arrived, unpacked and were ready to ride, it was closer to 12:30PM.  In my mind, that would have been a perfect time to just sit outside and enjoy lunch.  But 80 miles of riding had to be done.

The first hour or so were pretty much normal, heading out from near Prince William Park to the middle of nowhere.  I define nowhere as the area between Prince William Park and the Pacific Ocean, or roughly 2,300 miles of potential nowhere.  Here’s what nowhere looks like from space:

On the ground…well…it didn’t differ much – just lots of endless farms.  But I like farms.  I haven’t had enough farm riding in my life yet, so it’s still largely new to me.  You’ve got farmhouses:

And cows, horses, and even some goats.  Though strangely they all escaped my camera.

But there’s lots of nice empty quite roads, just like this:

Plus, I feel like the road kill and associated predators are better than in the city.  I passed one bit of kill that had about a dozen vultures hanging out at it.  Surprised the heck out of me!

Of course, the only challenge to farm country riding is ensuring you have adequate places to grab water or hydration.  After all, with the weather edging in on 90*F, you go through quite a bit more than you can reasonably carry for 80+ miles.

So, I was elated when I came across this little market:

Inside, it had one entire fridge that seemed dedicated to me:

Maybe it’s just me, but when I’m outside sweltering, the taste of oh so sweet COLD sports drinks is awesome, compared to the usual water/gel that I use.  So I might have picked up a bit of extra nutrition that wasn’t on the plan.  But so good!

On the flip side, the little market also offered minnows.  Which I found entertaining. 

I wonder if I had filled a water bottle with some of them what The Girl would have thought when I got back?  Like a portable aquarium!  I don’t see how that’s any different than when you see ladies decked out in bright pink sweat suits with their small dog on the front of the bike in a basket carrier.  Same-same, but different.

Off I went, into the farm fields again.  This time I stumbled upon a little wooden one-lane bridge.

I also took a few pictures of the bike and the roads.  The problem was I had hit a muddy patch earlier, so there was a bit of mud on my frame.  Like mud on your face…big disgrace.

On my second pass back by the market I picked up ice cold water this time.  I’ve always found it far cheaper to simply grab the gallon jug for $1.50, than individual water bottles.

A short bit later I wrapped things up.  All in all a great ride, I ended up at nearly 4hrs on the dot – so 20MPH average for a training ride.  Very happy with that!  Plus, my power was very solid as well, averaging 216w and 236w normalized.  I had a bit more fade at the end than I wanted from a power perspective, but from a ‘how do I feel’ perspective, it was the strongest yet this year.  So I’m hoping that bodes well for Boise 70.3 in two weeks.

So with that, it’s onto the rest of the long weekend including the outdoor pool opening up, and BBQ on Monday.  But more on that later!

Thanks for reading!

Week in Review: May 29th, 2011

I’ve long since wondered what to do with all the random tidbits of things I collect each week – or the little thoughts that don’t quite make for a full post.  But I finally came up with a solution: The Week in Review Post.  This takes the place of my Weekly Mailbag – which is over on Slowtwitch.  These are just quick snippets of things that I’ve found interesting.  Nice and easy weekend reading.  Plus, a recap of my Weekly Mailbag post a well.

So with that, let’s get into the action!

Weekly Mailbag over at Slowtwitch.com:    
This week I cover the following topics over at Slowtwitch as part of the mailbag series.  Just click right over here for all my Slowtwitch magic.

1) Is Edge 500 reliable with PowerTap?
2) Garmin FR310XT and where to wear it during swim
3) Training with Heart Rate Resources

You can read all my past weekly mailbags at Slowtwitch here.  Or the pre-Slowtwitch days here.

Posts this past week:  
A wide variety of posts this week covering quite a range of stuff, here’s what made the page:

Sunday: Week in Review–May 22nd, 2011
Monday:  2011 Escape from Ft. Delaware Race Report
Tuesday:  O and Potential Sport Uses
Wednesday: Comparing Race Times, PR’s, and Others Results
Thursday: Garmin Forerunner 610 May Giveaway
Friday: Tip of the day- How to use The Pear to keep you from fainting

Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:  
Somehow the Internet was full of interesting stuff this week. So a big pile of awesomeness for you to sift through:

1) Quarq Power Hour: In case you missed it earlier this week, you can now watch it via Youtube.  It’s divided into a bunch of chunks, with all of the topics/questions listed for each chunk.

2) Triathletes and eating disorders?  Nah…never.  A good look at a study on eating disorders and triathletes.

3) Athletes, Heat, and Mental Games: A pretty interesting little study where athletes were tricked into not knowing what the correct temperature was, and then watching how they performed.  Good stuff, thanks Evan for sending over!

4) Marathoner on pure McDonalds diet pretty much dominates.  While I don’t think Coach would approve this nutrition plan, I can’t exactly argue with his 2:36 marathon time.  Plus, I’m a fan of the McFlurry.

5) USA Pro Cycling Challenge is holding logo competition.  While they’re at it, it’d be kinda cool if they came up with a better name.  In the meantime, get out your crayons and get to it!

6) The Sins of FTP Testing.  This is an oldie – but I only recently stumbled upon it, so like NBC says ‘If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!’.  It talks to all the sins committed when people test FTP (Functional Threshold Power).

7) Stray dog accidentally enters Maryland Half-Marathon…and raises a ton of money for charity.  I’m reasonably certain my dog when I was a kid (Sasha) would never have made it past the stop sign 50 yards away before giving up.

8) Slowtwitch Interview with Airline Pilot and Professional Triathlete Jared Woodford.  I like flying, I like triathlon.  Seems like the perfect article mix to me.

9) Breaking the world vertical skiing records.  I’m happy to say that my brother and I’s 49,454 foot day in France a few years ago would have held up pretty well…now only if we had another 4,000,000 feet of vertical for the rest of the season.

10) Reverse Triathlon…from top of ski area: If I wasn’t on my honeymoon the day of this race, I’d make my way out to Crystal Mountain and participate.  7,000 feet of vertical, and it’s all downhill.  Start a the top with a run, then bike 40 miles downhill, then a quick swim.  Brilliance!

-

Random Notes:

With YouTube videos that I’ve posted I get little notifications anytime someone leaves a comment on one of my videos.  While most of my videos are for various product reviews, I do on occasion put up other little snippets as well.  This past week someone left a comment on one video I had taken last year just after I got my new bike (about a year ago now).  The video was taken during one of my first rides outside, where the weather was anything but cooperative.  In fact, it was just downright nasty – complete and total dumpage.  Of course, in the resulting year since, I’d long since forgotten about the video, but I just figured I’d share it again – mostly because I found it pretty entertaining seeing it again.  Like a little time capsule:

New bike in the rain…hard, dumping, rain.

Thanks all for reading, hope everyone’s weekend is going well!

Tip of the day: How to use The Pear to keep you from fainting

(Note From Ray - Quick Last Minute Heads Up: Today, Friday at 1PM the Washington Post will be doing a live Q&A chat with Columbia Triathlon Winner Lindsey Jerdonek.  You can quickly and easily submit questions now, so let’s show support for both triathlon and our local athletes and get lots of good questioned added to the queue! Go!)

It’s well publicized that the first 15 minutes after a workout are key to getting some initial form of recovery nutrition into your body – to enable the fastest recovery.  Beyond that, roughly the next hour is ideal for the larger pile of nutrition, to again, speed recovery.

Sometimes though, I find that after I workout I’m incredibly lazy.  Or rather, just easily distracted.  I glance at my phone to see if any work emergencies have gone ablaze, and then maybe I’ll check Twitter, perhaps some e-mail (ok, always some e-mail), and before I know it I’m sitting down replying to things and it’s 30 minutes later…without any recovery food/drinks.  Not to mention still usually drenched from that tough workout.

And while in most cases my body just ‘deals with it’ (and I do realize, not in a good way), the same can’t be said for The Girl.  After a long hard workout we’ve discovered she has a very finite time period before she basically crashes.  It seems like that’s roughly in the 30-45 minute range, even including a quick recovery drink.  She just needs food.  Real food.  Substantive food.

But despite all our best attempts, sometimes the whole cleaning up/distraction process just takes longer than it should, and soon we’re 45-60 minutes later and she’s on the verge of fainting.

So, I instituted The Pear rule (capitalized, because I can).  The Pear is simply a little egg timer that I bought her earlier this year for some of her baking endeavors.  The problem is…it turns out that she pretty much hates The Pear.  Mostly because it makes noise – both while it’s tick-tocking away, but also when it finally rings.  So she really never uses it for baking.

Thus it’s the perfect instrument to annoy her into getting to food faster – be it out the door to grab something to eat, or just simply eating whatever’s coming out of the oven.

So now when we finish up a tough workout, the first thing I do is grab The Pear, turn it once a full revolution and then set it back to 25 minutes.  The rule of the game (there’s only one rule) is that when the buzzer goes off, we must either be minutes away from eating what’s coming out of the oven/stove, or on the way to grab something quick (of substance) to eat.

Thus far, it’s working just great.

I picked up The Pear at the local World Market earlier this year, I think about $4US.  Though, you can grab it on online as well.  But in looking, I actually found some far more interesting egg timers.  Like, a Cheeseburger, a Fat Italian Chef, a Cupcake, a Rubber Ducky looking thing, and even a Cheese and Mouse.  Oh, she’s so going to hate me once I’m done shopping tonight…

Have a great weekend all!

(Oh, PS, for those curious, yes, the Polar RCX5 Review is soon!  The minor beta bug preventing me from uploading my workouts has been solved, and I’m back in business.  Look for the In Depth Review mid-next week. Thanks for your patience!)

Garmin Forerunner 610 May Giveaway

In celebration of summer BBQ season nearly being upon us, it’s time for a giveaway (or BBQ sauce)!  Given how hard to get the new Garmin Forerunner 610 GPS-enabled touch screen watch is, I figure it’s only appropriate that I give one away.  It was either that or giving away a case of BBQ sauce…and I’m pretty sure I know which one you’d prefer.

And the best thing is you’ve got nothing more to do than leave a single comment below (multiple comments don’t count around these parts!).

All you’ve gotta do down below is tell me how you plan to spend the upcoming three day weekend (for those in the US), for those in Canada, you can go with this past weekend.  And for those folks everywhere else in the world…we’ll just go with your plans for the weekend ahead.  Most importantly of course, is if a BBQ is involved…details are needed!

The entry period will run until Tuesday May 31st, 2011 at 11:59PM Eastern Time, at which point I’ll close the entry period and randomly select a winner.  Like the all my giveaways there are no restrictions on where the goods go to – so no matter where in the world you are, I’ll send to you.  The winner will get a brand new Garmin Forerunner FR610 (with HR strap).  It’ll be sent out Wednesday morning and you should have it a day or so later – or roughly ‘4-6 weeks’ ahead of everyone else waiting for their orders to get fulfilled.

(Note: If you’re active duty military and deployed and are unable to complete the entry method above, simply shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get ya entered in.  For those curious on how the giveaways work, here’s the deets.  In short – I purchase and giveaway everything here, these are not sponsored by Garmin.  Through careful planning I picked up a handful of them when they first came available…just so I could give them away to you.  Thanks all!)

Comparing Race Times, PR’s, and Others Results

A recent discussion with some friends around groups and training teams comparing race times got me thinking a bit about how most of us glance at race times we see on the Internet and make broad assumptions about one’s athletic capability, training plans, or race execution.  The same also applies to how we attempt to evaluate our own race results.  And despite the timing, last week’s comments directed at me in this post were actually not the driver this post, as it’s been one I’ve been slowly working on for a while.

See, with triathlon being a combo dish of three sports is interesting in that it makes it rather difficult to accurately compare times across different races – especially when the differences are small.  Sure, you can easily make broad athletic generalizations between a 2:10 Olympic distance finish time, and a 3:15 Olympic distance finis time – assuming comparing normal days.  But when you try and compare say… a 2:03 Olympic Distance finisher to that of a 2:15 Oly finisher, it becomes far more difficult.

Complicating the matter even more is if one were to look at the above example – 2:03  vs 2:15 – those are in fact vast differences in athletic capability between two athletes on the same course.  Now if apply those same differences to your own PR’s – how (if at all), do you differentiate between two Olympic distance races when you break your own personal record?  So let’s look at what drives time differences across different races.

Course Shortcomings and Overextensions:

The simplest driver is differences in course length.  Now I’m not talking about comparing an Ironman to a Sprint, but rather comparing two events of the same type.  Despite how many races advertise themselves an ‘International’ or ‘Olympic’ distance course – I’ve found that that vast majority of them use some liberty with the term (intentionally), especially on the bike.  For example, let’s compare some races over the past year or so that I’ve done with respect to actual distances (remember, Olympic distance should be 24.9 miles):

A) Escape from Ft. Delaware: 24.7 miles
B) Rumpus in Bumpass: 24.0 miles
C) St. John’s International Tri: 28.0 miles
D) Nautica NYC Triathlon: 25.5 miles
E) Tidewater International Triathlon: 21.0 miles
F) Rev3 Knoxville Oly: 25.8 miles (2010 was 25.8, 2010 is closer to 24.9)

(Note: I validated these distances against a sample set for each race on uploaded files to Garmin Connect from other racers.)

Now, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with a unique distance race, after all – the podium doesn’t care about the distance.  The challenge comes though when once glances at a time (or boasts about a time) for a distance that’s simply inaccurate.  For example, for me to look at my 2:04 Tidewater time from last year and say “Yup, I’m a 2:04 Olympic Distance athlete”, would simply be inaccurate and misleading. 

But the inverse is also true.  If I were to look at my St. John’s times (aside from the three flats), I would incorrectly assume I was a far slower cyclist that I actually am because I had to bike an extra three miles.  And that’s before we talk about run an extra half a mile for the 6.5 mile run course.

In fact, if you look at the above listing – the vast majority of races were over/under by nearly a mile.  I’ve always found it funny that in triathlon the bike leg can get away with being so far off a standard.  After all, what would happen if you went out to run a half-marathon and it was 13.9 miles instead?

Now, the bike leg is just one challenge.  We’ve also got the swim distances.  Out of all the three legs the swim is the most notorious for being off, mostly due to race organizers not taking the time to accurately measure buoy placement.  As I’ve long since said – in this day and age of handheld GPS devices, there’s really no excuse for this.  Nonetheless, I’ve swam courses that were clearly far short…and ones that were far long – slicing or adding minutes to ones time.

And let’s not forget transition, or transition times.  Last weekend my transition times were measured solely when I was within the small fenced in transition area where the bikes were – which is why they were sub-1 minute.  Whereas other races measure them from water exit to bike mount like.  Even more, some races have half mile plus transition runs (looking at you NYC Tri).  All these elements add up.  How long does it take you to run 750 yards + normal transition, versus how long does it take you to run 50 yards?

Course Terrain Variations:

Assume for a moment though that we do have two even length courses with the exact same distances for all three events.  Now they’re comparable, right?

Well, if it weren’t for Florida they might be.

Florida is the great place if you want to set a PR.  The most famous of course is Ironman Florida.  Typically speaking folks will be between 20 and 60 minutes faster at Florida due to the pancake flat bike and run courses.  Oddly enough though, that didn’t apply to me, as my Ironman Canada time was basically the same simply because me and long term aero position doesn’t get along.

The same is true of shorter events as well, and that applies to both the bike and the run.  Even within the same geographic region, for example, the run at the Nation’s Triathlon is pancake flat – whereas the run the nearby Giant Acorn triathlon is moderately rolling.

And don’t think the swim is exempt, not all swims are flat!  Take the Nautica NYC Triathlon for example.  This is a one way swim downriver.  Depending on the time of day, the current can be incredibly strong.  So strong in fact that the swim times for top athletes are often in the 11-12 minute range.  How do you compare that against an event that may be upriver for a portion, then back downriver for another portion (Nation’s Triathlon)?  Or a flat and calm reservoir (lots of triathlons)?

Weather/Training/Other Factors:

Last but not least is the whole host of reasons why someone may perform at a given level at one race, but a different level at another.  For example – weather.  Some athletes may do better in colder races while others in warmer races.  Some races may have an outright monsoon while on the bike leg – which most certainly affects bike speeds for that race.  And we don’t even want to talk about wind…

Additionally, some athletes may treat certain races on their schedule with lesser importance than other athletes.  Most athletes have an ‘A’ race or two, with other races along the way they may not fully taper for.  This is true for everyone from age groupers to Olympic champions.  This doesn’t of course mean that you can’t take pride in beating someone on race day, as a race is a race.

There are of course endless other reasons why someone may do exceedingly well at one race and poorer at the other.  But don’t overlook the obvious: They simply may be better trained for that race.

So what does it all mean?

When you start looking at all the details that make up a triathlon, you find that the answers aren’t as black and white as a simple finishing time.  For running races it’s far easier, primarily because most races have a well measured and adhered to distance.  In general one can compare a handful of 10K race results and get a rough idea of ones running capability with a quick check of a elevation graph.  This is much more difficult to do with a high level of accuracy in triathlon.  Generalization yes, but basing performance on a single data point: Not really.

The point being – when you look at times, be sure to understand the courses – otherwise you might be giving yourself false impressions of your competition…for better or worse.

And when looking at your own results – be sure to balance ‘making excuses’ for a given race with objectively looking at a race result and its individual components and determining how you fared against competitors on that day on that specific course, versus previous results that may be years old on different courses with different conditions and different training/racing objectives.  Sometimes when you dig a little, you might surprise yourself.

A look MetaWatch, Google I/O and Potential Sport Uses

A little over a week ago at the Google IO conference a company called Fossil not so quietly introduced the MetaWatch.  The watch allows one to wirelessly connect to their cell phone and stream glanceable information, such as who’s calling or new e-mail/text messages.  The idea being to take a normal looking watch (one of the two model actually looks formal dining room classy!) and combine it with the functionality that triggers most folks to pull a phone briefly out of their pocket, such as seeing who’s calling during a meeting.  Applying that to the sports world, a company like RunKeeper could integrate their app such that the phone remains in your jersey pocket or armband, but the information you care about (speed/pace, distance, heart rate via BT HRM strap) is displayed wirelessly on the watch in real time.

But before I get to the details of the watch, there’s one thing that’s of particular note: The goal of Fossil and the MetaWatch isn’t actually to sell directly to you, the end users.  Nope, it wants to re-invent how digital watches are designed ground up from a technology standpoint.  So how are you gonna get one then?  Well…hang on and I’ll explain.

See, today when a company comes up with an idea to create a watch for some purpose they have to design everything end to end themselves.  This means everything from chip selection to firmware that runs the device to the software that you use to then have that device interact with a computer (like downloading workouts).  This costs a lot, with one of the major costs being production of the physical watch itself (manufacturing).  Typically this runs about $1M for the first year for a startup to get a complex digital watch off the ground.  Think of companies like Sportsense, developing the Swimsense watch for example.  When you look at that device, there’s a lot of ground that they had to re-invent.  Some was unique, but some might have been re-usable.  And their costs might have been considerably lower initially.

That’s where the MetaWatch folks want to interject themselves.  They’re looking to offer startups the ability to do prototyping and limited production runs of watches at a fixed and cheap cost – $200 per device.  The key selling point to startups is that they’ve created a device that includes a highly visible LCD screen on the front of it that can be customized to do anything you’d like.  And since it’s written on a fully open source code base, it allows a startup company to customize it how they see fit.  The only component of the watch that isn’t open source is the Bluetooth stack.  This means that from a development standpoint there’s nothing stopping a small company with a cool sports idea.  Well, except $200 and some quality dev time with pizza boxes and Mountain Dew.  Comparing this to previously, where they’d have to invest heavily in initial prototypes and manufacturing costs.

So how does this all integrate into the sports world?  Well, one of the guys behind the MetaWatch is Bill Geiser, who happens to have a long history with sports watches, in particular one of the very first watches designed for swimming, the Speedo Stroke Monitor, back in the late 90’s.  This watch worked by a simple transistor switch that recognized when the water was in the water…or the air based on electrical current.  Thus each stroke could be counted simply due to the circuit being completed when the hand hit the water.  But that was 1998.

Now fast forward nearly 15 years to the MetaWatch.  This watch includes five key features that are of interest to folks in the sport device world: A fully customizable 96x96p LCD screen, an accelerometer, waterproofing to 30 meters (3ATM), up to a week of battery life, and a vibrating motor for vibration alerts.  Add to that it includes the TI 2560 Bluetooth chip for syncing data between cell phones and other devices (laptops/tablets/etc..).  Between all that stuff you’ve now got the majority of the parts needed to create your own sports watch.

The device does have a few areas which could be improved upon though should it want to be leveraged for sports.  For example, it doesn’t have any method for audible alerts (beeping).  And for those in the running/cycling world, ANT+ capability is huge, and it doesn’t have that either.  In talking with Bill Geiser about this, I asked what the path would be should a company want to integrate ANT+ into the device.  He noted that the current TI-2560 BT (Bluetooth)chip in these watches has an identical footprint as the TI-2567 chip, which include both BT and ANT+.  It should be noted that the current BT chip does not support Bluetooth Lightweight (BTLE) and only supports basic rate Bluetooth.  That’s alright…as there’s basically no BTLE devices out there yet in the sports world.  Even Polar has backed away from using it in the near term, instead focusing on their W.I.N.D. protocol for upcoming devices like the Polar/Look KEO pedal based power meter.

So what’s the path ahead?  Well, over the next month the device will start shipping to people (developers mostly) who’ve ordered it.  From there those folks will need to start developing apps for it, either to control the watch from a cell phone, or to just use the watch natively.  From a phone standpoint this will for the immediate future be limited to folks using Android phones, and will require that the Openwatch App be installed on your phone – as this is the conduit between the phone and the watch.  And as noted earlier, this would then allow sports applications like MapMyRide/RunKeeper/etc… to stream the data you care about directly from the phone to your watch display – just as if you had a normal Garmin/Polar/Suunto/Timex sports watch.  And from a development standpoint, if a developer can program for the Android platform, they can program for and fully control the MetaWatch.

I asked about iPhone compatibility and they said that the major blocker today is around time limitations imposed by iOS for background tasks.  Additionally, the iOS platform prohibits calls to certain functions like inbound telephony information and text messages (without jailbreaking).  I also asked whether or not adding a GPS chip into the device was on the table.  They noted that while it has been considered, it would require an interested company to work with Fossil to create a new watch that supports it – a bit of a ‘start from scratch’ type of situation.

In all, I think the MetaWatch will present an interesting landscape for sports technology startups to quickly prototype and get beta and first run products in front of test groups.  I don’t see it changing the game or development cycle for major and established players like Garmin/Polar/Timex/Suunto, but I do see it as an opportunity for smaller or no-name companies to quickly break on the scene.  I also see it as a very intriguing opportunity for classic phone app developers to dabble in the device world without any more investment than a $200 test kit.  And, of course down the road perhaps we’d get to a full color model not unlike a simple Apple Nano strapped to a watch band that allowed you to run whatever apps you wanted.  Think of a Garmin FR310XT…but with the RunKeeper app running on it.  Of course, today this is just Fossil’s first generation device…but I think the future is bright. For now though, baby steps.

(P.S. – Yes, this may be a bit geeky for some…but I know y’all like the mix of sports technology and race reports, so fear not – tomorrow will be back to deep triathlon thoughts.)

2011 Escape from Ft. Delaware Race Report

The Escape from Ft. Delaware is a bit different than most races from a logistics standpoint – but that made it absolutely perfect as a lead-up to my ‘A’ race – Boise 70.3 - here in about 3 weeks.  See, just like Boise this race also starts at roughly noon.  And also just like Boise, this one is a bit of a point to point affair requiring some pre-race planning with respect to starting in one place, and finishing somewhere else.

However, unlike Boise we were able to simply drive the two hours north from Washington DC up on Saturday evening.  Come mid-morning Sunday we simply pulled up to the race site and got all unpacked. 

You may have noticed that my race wheels aren’t yet on the bike.  I just happened to pack it on the car before putting the race wheels on.  But normally if I’m driving to an event I always take both pairs of wheels.  You just never know what might happen that you might need the other pair (spoke breaks, run over it, too windy for race wheels, etc…).  Same goes for helmets, I always take both race aero helmet and regular helmets, just in case I (or someone else) need it.

With everything set I headed on over to transition around 9AM to pickup my packet and race chip.  I love races that do same day packet pickup.  So much easier.

It only took a few minutes from there to get all setup in transition.  Like usual, I have a fairly minimal setup (my bike below is the white Cervelo in the middle of the frame).  Though this time it was just slightly too minimal in that I left my transition towel in the car.  Didn’t really end up mattering at all though since there wasn’t any sand or mud that you’d want to wipe off your feet coming out of the swim.

Speaking of the swim – it was soon time to board the ferry.  Since this was a point to point swim, the race actually started over on a nature reserve about a mile away.  You boarded a ferry in waves starting at 10AM, I was in the first ferry boarding wave.

Perhaps the funniest part of the entire day was when the ship’s Captain came out in front of the 50 of us onboard in our wetsuits and said:

“I’m pretty sure that ya’ll can swim far better than I, but you’ll have to forgive me as I do need to tell you where the lifejackets are and how to use them…”

Once we arrived at the island we found it nice and quiet:

At this point I still had about 1hr and 45 minutes to kill.  There isn’t much to do there except simply sit and relax.  Which is honestly just about the perfect thing to do.  I found a little place below nearby the clean port potties in some shade (that’s not me below, that’s the dude next to me in the sun).

As we neared 11:45AM I got all packed up and ready to go.  Before I knew it…we were jumping into the water.

The Swim:

The swim crosses over the Delaware Bay to Delaware City.  It’s simply point to point from one dock at the nature preserve, to another dock at the city.

When we headed out there on the ferry everyone noticed a fair amount of floating debris (logs/sticks/etc…), but I was lucky in that during my swim I managed to not run into any.

With a bit of a current I started upstream some and then drifted slightly downstream to meet the buoys closer to the finishing area.  This worked great.  My swim itself was fairly quiet, as there were only a handful of guys in front of me.  I kept the pace fairly consistent, but probably went a bit too easy.  I was however very happy with my line – I felt it was rather solid and that I didn’t waste much  time wandering around.  The light chop of the open bay didn’t bother me either, but I could see how if one wasn’t as comfortable in the water it would definitely have been a bit of a problem for some.  For me, after Rhode Island’s swim a few years ago – pretty much anything not involving hurricane induced waves is peachy.

Towards the end of the swim there’s a short canal you head upstream for the last 150y or so.  This stretch had a surprising little bit of downstream current in it, which was quite noticeable if you sighted off of some of the docks you were swimming past and realized just how slowly you were really moving forward.

All in my swim time was a bit off the mark at 27:13, but compared to the rest of the field, not too bad in 13th place overall.  The fastest swim was ‘only’ 6 minutes faster.  That’s about in line with where I usually stand though off the leaders in the swim.

The Bike:

I was quickly on the bike in less than a minute – 49 seconds to be exact.  Though, some of that had to do with the fact that the transition times were measured literally from the point you entered the transition area itself, as opposed to being from the swim exit (which is why my swim time is a bit longer as well with probably a minute of running).

It didn’t take long on the bike to get into a bit of a rhythm, which I was happy about.  With less than 10 guys ahead of me, it was a very prolonged effort to pull in each and every one of them.  And while I was making progress on that front, I was really rather happy with my power numbers.  My race plan for the first 15 miles had me holding between 250w and 270w – and I was able to easily do that at a nice even cadence between about 90 and 95RPM.

Then, as I hit the 15 mile marker, my race plan allowed me to bump that up a little bit to 270-285w steady-state, which I was again able to nail.  You lose a bit of power from an averaging standpoint on both sections due to a long descent coming off a rather high bridge (about 60-90 seconds descending from the below beast).  I know it doesn’t look terribly high up…but really, it is – 135ft to the water should you accidentally fall over it.  I took the opportunity to ride a bit away from the edge, that way in the event I did crash I wouldn’t have gone over the edge.  From where I was sitting on my bike, the railing was barely the height of my handlebars.

Outside of absolutely nailing my power numbers, there wasn’t actually a ton of action.  It was just a very steady effort.  Probably one of my best and cleanest race plan execution, I was very happy with it.  The roads were also dead quiet, so much so that you probably would have thought it was a closed course.  I maybe only had 2-3 cars pass me the entire race.  And as for other competitors, I only saw the 2-3 guys that I passed.  Nobody else was really ever within sight.

The wind was definitely a factor though – slowing down not only myself, but others as well.  It pushed a fair bit from all directions, but certainly slowed things down some.  That’s the nice part about power though in that I can kinda ignore wind and just focus on power and my race.

With that, I finished up the bike in 1:06:35 – or the 8th fastest bike split of the day.  The top bike split of the day was only 75 seconds faster, so it wasn’t like I was too far behind.

The Run:

With the bike down, the only thing left to do was run.  The course was as simple as it gets, go out 3.1 miles…then come back 3.1 miles.

And that I did.

I counted only 7 folks ahead of me when I started my run.  One guy was just about 50 yards ahead of me – the rest were beyond viewing distance.  The run is normally where I make up the most ground in triathlons, and today was no exception.

The difference was just how darn long it took to make up that ground. To pass that guy 50 yards ahead of me took 4 miles.  Yup, four whole painfully long miles.  A rather lengthy period for just one place.

We were both really moving – with the first mile being sub-6, and the second not far behind.

After the turnaround at mile 3 though I did pick off a couple of guys that were slowing done a fair bit.  And when I finally did pass that initial person at mile four, it wasn’t like he just disappeared.  No, he just hang out a few dozen yards behind me – essentially taunting me to consider slowing down.

Luckily, while I was slowing down a tiny bit from sub-6 to 6:15-6:20’s, so was he – so it all equaled out and he stayed behind me for good.

I’d like to say there was some great excitement on the run…but there really wasn’t.  It was just a simple matter of running smooth and solid, slowly building towards the finish.  And since each pass took so long from the initial spotting hundreds of yards up ahead to finally overtaking, it was like watching everything in slow motion.

I ended up crossing the line in 39:49 – the 5th fastest run of the day.  I was happy with the sub-40 run for the 10K, nothing to complain about there!  Overall, my official time was 2:15:10.  I was really hoping for sub-2:10 – but the wind and slower swim killed my hopes a bit there.  But since everyone else was a bit slower from previous years in those two areas, I don’t feel so bad. ;)

Here’s the final totals for the day:

Swim 1500 meters: 27:13, Overall 13th
T1: 49 seconds
Bike 40K: 1:06:35, Overall 8th
T2: 42 seconds
Run 10K: 39:49 Overall 5th
Overall: 2:15:10, Overall 4th, 1st in M25-29.

With the passing of the 4-mile guy, that put me into 4th place overall, and 1st in age group…which is pretty awesome!

As a result, I got to go hang out on the podium!  Apparently 2nd place guy didn’t get the awards memo.

So with that I’ve got three weeks left till Boise 70.3…then I get to relax a bit…oh, and get married.  Woohoo!

Thanks for reading, and hope everyone had a great weekend!

Oh…ps…serious congrats to friend and professional triathlete Lindsey for winning the highly competitive Columbia Triathlon on Sunday.  Rebecca (another DC friend), has a handful of pictures of her up, as well as a few others from the day.  Huge win!