Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Bike Case and Run Kit Giveaway

In most of my giveaways, I giveaway a single item to a single person.  A watch, a scale, a something.  This time though, I’m going to shake things up a bit, and give a bunch of piles of stuff to a bunch of people.

Four piles.

Four people.

Perhaps…for the 4th?  You know, the 4th of July (for you Canadians, it’s like what you do on the 1st of July).

Last week the guys over at Wahoo Fitness sent me a giant box of goodies, as a thank-you for letting them borrow a pile of my Garmin Forerunner units so that they could add in ANT+ wireless download support to the iPhone/iPod for the FR60, FR610 and FR405 (in addition to the FR310XT support they already had).  This allowed them to code the application to support those units.

And while I love gadgets just as much as the next guy… I really don’t need this many ANT+ cases and dongles…my soon to be wife will likely be upset enough once she finds the Vasa Trainer sprawling across the entryway upon return from our honeymoon.

So here’s what’s on tap for the giveaway: Four sets in total.

Two Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Bike Case kits; with an extra aero bar mount kit and an extra ride bike mount kit (making two road bike mount kits in total, one tri bike mount), inclusive of the Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Speed/Cadence sensor as well.

Two Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Run Kits; which includes the Wahoo Fitness ANT+ dongle, an ANT+ premium soft strap heart rate strap, and an armband holder for your iPhone/iPod.

Got all that?  Good.  It’s like $700 worth of goodness.  That’s a lot of money you can now spend on sparklers instead.  Or those little snap-pop thingies (do they still make those?).

Four sets, four people, for the fourth.

The winners will be chosen at random, and then each person will get to select which prize they want – starting with the first random winner.  If there’s a conflict, I’ll try and find a way to work it out.

Simply leave a comment with your best/funniest/most entertaining wedding party memory – that’s it.  Super simple.

The entry period will run until Monday July 4th, 2011 at 11:59PM Eastern Time, at which point I’ll close the entry period and the winners will be randomly selected.  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.

(Note: If you’re Active Duty Military and deployed and are unable to complete the comment entry method, simply shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get ya entered.  For those curious on how the giveaways work, here’s the deets. Thanks all!)

Putting together the Vasa Swim Trainer/Ergometer in less than 90 seconds

The boxes came a number of weeks ago, but it arrived the day before I headed out to Boise 70.3, so I didn’t get a chance to assemble it.  Then it was back and forth across the country to Denver, then DC, then NYC and the the craziness of packing for the wedding set it.  But this evening I finally had the chance to put humpty dumpty together.

And if the trainer itself won’t give you a workout…then putting it together certainly will!

When it first arrived a bit ago, it looked like this – a collection of pretty substantial boxes.  Not exactly lightweights here.  In my ways it reminded me quite a bit of the CompuTrainer in terms of heaviness, except these boxes were bigger and harder to move around.  An ironic comparison given the Vasa Swim Trainer is essentially the CompuTrainer of the swim world.

Fast forward to this evening and I was ready to begin setup.  Instead of doing photo by photo pieces, I’m going to go all out with a video of the whole shebang compressed down into just 60 seconds.  I took a few photos along the way, but the video is really the much better option.

Ready?  Good…hold on!  Here we go…

Vasa Swim Trainer assembly in 60 seconds

Next time I’m hiring someone to build it!

Now, upon finding the instructions after unpacking the boxes in a different order than desired it looks like I probably could have improved the flow a bit – but all in all it wasn’t too complex.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering where I stashed the camera – there was only one logical place…atop the giant pile of Gatorade boxes:

In order to give you a quick feel for the trainer, I put together one more little video which shows me using it (first half), as well as the power meter portion (second half).  I set the resistance level moderately high (as if going against a slight current), and got to work:

Vasa Swim Trainer Brief Overview Video

You noticed in the second half of the video I showed off the power meter console.  This will show both power output in watts, as well as your pace (i.e. 1:30/100m, or essentially 1-minute 30-seconds per 100 meters).

It’ll also show you how far you’ve swam, as well as average wattage across the workout.  You can do quite a bit more with the display unit, but I just haven’t had the chance yet to read the manual (I mean…uhh…figure it out myself).  Fear not, I’ve got a number of months to play with it before I put together my final In Depth review (the unit is on loan from Vasa to check out).  Plus, I suspect my coach will come up with some workouts as well.  And failing that, it came with a bunch of DVD’s of workouts too:

As is usually the case with the longer product review cycles, expect to see sprinkles of it here and there – I find that most folks enjoy seeing it in day to day use over time.

Today, this data shown in the trainer isn’t recorded anywhere.  Though in talking with the owner of VASA, they’re very open to the idea of integrating that in (Hint: If this is something that appeals to you, the comments is a good place for an appeal).  Going the ANT+ route would enable them to take advantage of any watch that understands power today (i.e. – everything from a Garmin FR310XT to an Edge 500 to a Joule to a Timex Global Trainer) – all of which wouldn’t require any update at all.  This is in essence what the kayak paddle power meter folks are doing as well (those are on the way to me from New Zealand here later this summer to try out!).

In the meantime…I’ve just gotta figure out how I’m going to re-arrange parts of the training room to make this fit and still enable me to exit the house.  Eek!

A Long Run Tour of Washington DC

This weekend was full of loops – be it ones I seemingly did everywhere trying to get errands done at breakneck pace in preparation for next weekend (wedding), or ones that I did while running and cycling.  I’ll spare you all the errands and instead just focus on the running and cycling.

Because Saturday daytime ended up being full of errands I decided to run in the evening instead – just before dusk.  I started from Gravelly point, which is a few hundred yards north of Washington National/Regan Airport.  On summer evenings this place becomes pretty packed with folks sitting out on the grass enjoying the planes taking off.  It also happens to be located directly on the busiest running/cycling trail in the area – the Mt. Vernon Trail.

From there I ran northbound along the Potomac, opposite Lincoln and the monuments sitting on the DC side of the river:

(Note that all photos are taken while running without stopping, so sometimes they end up being fuzzier than if I was out shooting on a tripod with a fancy DSLR camera)

This evening I was playing around with the CamelBak Flow Meter that I picked up back a while ago, attached to my CamelBak filled with water.  I’ll talk more about my thoughts on that little gizmo in an upcoming post titled “Gadget or Gimmick”.  In short, it keeps tracks of how much liquid you’ve drank, and how much is left:

I crossed over at Rosslyn, via the Key Bridge and plopped into Georgetown – which was full of folks dressed in fancier clothes, or on fancier methods of transportation.

A short bit later I ran past the Kennedy Center, basking in the glow of sunset:

From there it was Lincoln, though from the back you’d never know it was swarming with tourists (typical from April till September):

After that I swung by the Obamas to see if they were home.  Regrettably they did not say ‘Hello’ to me, or the hundreds outside waving ‘Hi’.

Continuing my trek I hit up the Washington Monument en route to the Capital.

Unfortunately, they were building the stage for the 4th of July celebrations next weekend, so the view was partially blocked.

For the rest of the run the light was getting a bit too low for my camera to take good pictures.  But I did swing back down to Lincoln (left side of DC on map), then over to FDR before running around the Tidal Basin, seeing final construction on the new MLK Memorial, and eventually past Jefferson before crossing the bridge again.  He’s my favorite.  Though, I couldn’t get a picture of him tonight.  Instead, I offer you my route:

I often do variants of this route, since you get to see virtually all the major monuments…one of the most enjoyable aspects of living in the DC area.  Tonight’s run was 14 miles and change including the cool down, but you can make variations of this much shorter (or longer) if need be.  And since it’s a loop you can start at pretty much any point on/around DC – depending on where you’re staying.

By time I got back to my car parked at Gravelly point it was fairly dark:

Interestingly, when I took another shot with the flash (and slightly moved the camera), you can make out the Capital Building in the background to the left (may have to click on picture to see).

(P.S. – No, that’s not blood, just some wet dirt I managed to get on my CamelBak that transferred to my shirt when I put it on.)

I had planned to write about Sunday’s bike…but after doing the run post I realized I’ve already written a lot.  So I’ll leave with you two simple pictures instead.

The first is me playing around with the Wahoo ANT+ iPhone/iPod Bike Case combined with the new aerobar mount.  My bars are setup a bit too slim for the mount kit to fit down in between them, but no worries – it still works.  More on this later this week.

And the second picture of the Tour Mobile…as that’s what my ride felt like on Sunday.

Hope everyone had a great weekend…and thanks for reading!

Week in Review–June 26th, 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:    
Look for a new post over on ST on Monday.  Topics will be updated later tonight…but I think I’m going to do a ‘Best of Dan Empfield’ mailbag, taking all his best e-mailed questions.  Should be kinda fun!

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

Posts over on the Men’s Health/Gatorade/Urbanathlon Blog:  
In addition to all my writings here, I also cover a bunch of topics over on the Men’s Health Urbanathlon blog.  Here’s the goods from the past week:

Monday: How to Take Aid Station Hydration While Running at Speed (includes sweet videos of The Girl)
Tuesday: An Introduction to GPS Running Watches
Wednesday: Behind the Scenes at CrushingtheCourse.com (by Ray and Sarah)
Friday: 266 Pounds of Gatorade

Note: Monday-Wednesday posts were catch-up posts…so everything from here on out should be on the correct days.

Posts this past week:  
Here’s what made the page here on the main stage here on DCRainmaker.com:

Monday:  2011 DC Tri Race Report –3rd Overall!
Tuesday: New partnership with Men’s Health, Urbanathlon & Gatorade
Wednesday: The Garmin ANT+ Footpod Calibration Tool
Friday Morning: Ballgames, Bags and Boxes
Friday Afternoon: Garmin FR610 Accuracy Firmware Fix Results

Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:  
The last few weeks have had just too much good stuff out there.  It was hard narrowing it all down, but I think I got the good stuff.  Remember, I end up sharing quite a bit more over on Twitter:

1) Running in an anti-gravity machine: Pretty cool post from Steve on what it’s like to run in the Alter-G treadmill, which makes it similar to running on the moon.

2) The costs and financial impacts of an Ironman race on the local community.  If nothing else, take a look at some of the comments, a few of which do a great job of putting real numbers on the table. (via EverymanTri)

3) Why intimidating an off-duty police officer riding her bike with your car isn’t the wisest thing to do.

4) New BlueTooth Low Energy Heart Rate Strap Released.  Following up on last week’s next of BTLE spec finally be finalized, a new HR strap has been released.  The real question now becomes if the rumors of iPhone 5/New iPod having BT4.0 will come true. (via Engadget)

5) ITU Athletes go paragliding.  Apparently they didn’t think they had enough adventure in their lives already…so they jumped off the side of a mountain.

6) Preview of the Ironman 70.3 Championship Course.  Now that the world championships have been moved from pancake Florida to the desert, we should see some pretty interesting racing this year.  Here’s a great video of the course.

Ironman 70.3 World Championship Course in Las Vegas

7) Visually impaired triathlete sues USAT for sight discrimination.  Lots of opinions on this, many of which are thoroughly detailed out in this Slowtwitch thread.

8) Riding rollers rigged to a table connected to a blender.  I think the previous sentence summarizes it well.  That said, creating a bike blender and easy DIY instructions is on my to-do list for the summer.  I’ve seen many examples, most of which are made industrially.

Bike Blender via Rollers and Table

9) Swimsense adds more features to watches.  Included now is the ability to configure watch settings from the desktop client.  I continue to enjoy seeing more and more features added here…looking forward to each feature they add and those coming down the line.

10) A cool article on running show technology.  In particular, the ForceShow from XSens.  Looks like I need to do some poking and figure out how to get a demo pair to show y’all.

11) Really really really cool video from triathlete Tim Don.  Somehow I missed this on Simon Whitfield’s blog back a few weeks ago (it’s been a crazy June!), but definitely wanted to share this now.  One of the few very well made ‘here’s what my training really looks like’ type videos.

48 Hours Training with Tim Don

Thanks for reading!

Garmin FR610 Accuracy Firmware Fix Results

Today Garmin released a new firmware update for the Garmin FR610, which aims to fix the accuracy issues that have been noticed by some users.  You likely saw my 2011 GPS Accuracy Test Results not too long ago, which found the FR610 to be consistently short (about 2% on most courses, upwards of 10% on some shorter distance routes).

Shortly after I published that series I was provided a new firmware update to test out that aimed to address some of these problems.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t speak about it publically since it was under embargo until public release.

Since then I’ve had a chance to do both regular run tests, as well as re-run some of my GPS accuracy tests to see how it faired with the new update.  This test will discuss the GPS accuracy issues, but from a general standpoint, I haven’t see any repercussions of the firmware update otherwise – and even used it in my ‘A’ race – Ironman Boise 70.3.

But let’s start with just a general run with two Garmin GPS watches – the running focused FR210 and the FR610. I simply started both at the same time (just pressed start, no other funky button combos), and then ran at a 7ish mile pace.  Was started I otherwise ignored it, though both watches had either distance auto-lap (FR210) or distance alerts (FR610) on, simply because they were turned on that way from a previous run.

My run route was one of my standard ones that I do multiple times a week.  It includes a pretty even combination of a few miles of open air (little tree coverage), a few miles of canopy tree coverage, over half a dozen bridges to go over, and a lot of turns.

Throughout the run both units tracked within .01-.02 virtually the entire time.  Sometimes one would be a touch bit higher, and then sometimes the other.  But basically they were doing the same thing at the same time.

When all was said and done, here was the results…pictures speak louder than words:

(Calorie differences are simply due to the fact that I don’t have the health settings set the same on both watches)

As you can see, about as close as I can get without being exactly spot on – and at only .01 miles off on a 6.5 mile course that means they were within 99.846% of each other.

But I wasn’t content with just that.  From there I decided to re-test three of the five tests I did. Specifically I tested:

1) The Straight and Narrow (1-mile test)
2) The Bridge Underpass Test
3) The Rambling Loop Test

I did all three tests on a bike at relatively low speed, simply because I was trying to knock them out more efficiently.  Last time though I didn’t see any appreciable difference in the FR610 specifically when it came to accuracy differences between cycling/running/walking (some of the other units did see differences however).

With that, let’s get straight to the results.  On the left you’ll see the summary results for each of the three tests I did a few weeks ago, and on the right you’ll see the new test results with the latest firmware update:

Yup…seriously.  Every test was exactly spot on.

Like before though, I only showed the numbers that you the user sees though are the mileage numbers noted above.  For fun though, I did look at the mile test – which should be 5,280 feet – and it measured it as 5,273ft.  Pretty impressive.

Also note that to date, no watch I’ve ever tested has scored a straight 100% across any three tests.  And while I didn’t have the time to head into the twisty tree course, I’d guess it’ll improve some there (though I suspect that like the rest of the units it’ll still have some general GPS issues).

All in all I think this is a pretty vast improvement from a firmware standpoint.  Like I said before, I’m always willing to retest products if/when a firmware update addresses an issue.  Hopefully we’ll see some other companies do the same with other watches that have performed poorly in the past.

You can pickup the FR610 firmware fix here…

Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask any questions in the comments.  Thanks!

Ballgames, Bags and Boxes

The last few days have been a bit of a blur – hence the reason why things have been somewhat quiet on the rainmaker front.  On Wednesday night I had a surprise bachelor party thrown for me when my brother came into town.  The centerpiece being a Nats vs Seattle Mariners game – which is pretty cool since I’m an M’s fan from growing up in Seattle.  Regrettably…the game itself was somewhat fuzzy…

Moving right along, everything in the house is revolving around boxes and bags.  Boxes coming in, boxes going out, bags to pack.  Then unpack, and repack again…and again…and again.  The Girl leaves at 6AM on Friday (in a few hours) for the wedding destination, with me following along in a few days.  But in order to ensure we’ve got everything the packing has to be largely done before she leaves.

So between all the boxes that we’ve got packed going outbound with wedding related stuff – we’ve also incoming Wedding Registry gifts, not to mention the usual stream of DCRainmaker related product review boxes.  I think it was Monday afternoon when I walked out of the garage and the UPS/FedEx guys had piled up the boxes to the height of the garage door.  Not quite sure why they just didn’t ring the doorbell…perhaps they liked stacking.

And then…to top it off, we got 266 pounds of Gatorade delivered via freight.  But I wrote about all that over on the Men’s Health Urbanathlon blog.

Hopefully this weekend I’ll have a chance to get through all of the DCR related boxes…I know there’s some cool new stuff from Wahoo in a rather large box, then there’s the gigantic VASA swim trainer/power meter to unbox.  Plus some other goodness that I’m finishing up taking photos of in the pool for, currently scheduled for release/announcement next week as well.  Good times!

But…I’ve gotta get up here in a few to run to the airport, so thanks hanging in there and thanks for reading!

The Garmin ANT+ Footpod Calibration Tool

A bit ago I stumbled upon a really cool tool that allows you to determine your Garmin ANT+ footpod calibration factor based on existing run data that you might have already run with your footpod.  For example, if you’re like me – you’ve probably got a few pairs of shoes you probably rotate your footpod around on each shoe depending on a variety of factors.

The problem with this is that each time you adjust the footpod location on the shoe – it affects the footpod calibration.  In most cases for outdoor running it’s not a huge issue, as the GPS on the Garmin Forerunner units is used by default, with the footpod merely providing cadence or in the event of GPS loss – data for that missing segment.

But if you do quite a bit of treadmill running, or if you just happen to use the footpod over GPS, it’s important to ensure the two are aligned.

Now for me going to the treadmill and/or the track to perform another calibration test is a bit of a PITA…so I tend not to do it as often as I probably should after I change footpod shoe positions.  Thus, in the semi-rare cases where I do end up on a treadmill, the speed may not be correct unless I first re-calibrate it for the new position.  And I usually only do that if I’m going to be doing multiple treadmill runs (i.e. – travelling overseas in certain problematic cities where running outside would be heavily frowned upon).

Thus, I introduce you to the Garmin Footpod Calibration Tool – which looks at your existing Garmin TCX files that contain both GPS and footpod data, and calculates what you should set your calibration factor to manually.

The tool is super easy to use.  When you open it up, it’ll automatically read in all of your running files from all of your watches.  In my case…that’s a lot of watches…and a lot of files.  In my case because I’m often swapping shoes/watches/footpods for reviews (and not re-calibrating), the data is a bit more mixed up.  For most of you, you probably have a bit more steady data with just one watch and one footpod that’s likely correctly calibrated.  Nonetheless, check out the massive list of files for just the past year that it pulled in:

This list of files shows up in the application on the left side in a column, sorted by date – but also displaying distance as well.  When you click on a given activity, it displays more information about that run on the right hand side.

For those activities that have lap markers in them, you can then expand it to see how the accuracy varies per lap.  For example, if you’re doing intervals you may find that on some laps where you’re ‘walking’ you may have higher/lower accuracy that those at faster paces.

In the above examples where the mileage is .3 – these are lower intensity ‘rest’ periods done at a jog pace – thus you see slight differences in accuracy compared to other paces.  That said, I’m 99% sure the unit wasn’t calibrated at the time, hence the larger accuracy shift than I would have preferred.

On the right hand side of the application you’ll see two graphs that plot GPS accuracy over footpod accuracy (top chart), and then plot scale factor based on the GPS distance (bottom chart).

Perhaps more important though is the calibration suggestion/correction portion.  This data area displays the new suggested calibration factor should be based on the data from that particular run.  In this case, it sees a default factor of 1000 (but you can change that based on your watch) and then the actual distance based on the data in the file.

If you’re super geeky, you can go into expert mode, which lets you look file by file and section by section at the deviations for each run and the differences between them.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

To adjust your manual calibration factor on your watch based on the tool you’ll simply go into the footpod settings area on the watch and then to manual calibration.  Each one of the Garmin Forerunners has this in a slightly different place – but for most of them its in the unit settings section.

The best part here is that the little app is free – developed by Jonathan Savage, and downloadable here.  Note that the app is not made by Garmin, but rather just an enthusiastic runner in the community.  But technically speaking it’s giving you the exact same data that you would manually insert into the ‘manual calibration factor’.

A key item to remember here is that the calibration tool is using GPS data to provide the footpod calibration factor, which is never going to be as accurate as an absolute distance such as 400m/800m on a track.  And while GPS accuracy in a track environment can be quite close (as my recent tests have shown), it’s just something to keep in mind if you choose to use the calibrate tool over a track test.  For most of us (or maybe just me), I’ll gladly take the time savings over having to run to the track to re-test.  Especially given how close the accuracy factor is.

Also keep in mind that in some of the screenshots above that I created you see vast difference in accuracy from footpod to GPS.  Remember again that I rarely calibrate the footpod myself since I’m changing it so often.  But in the past when I do remember to calibrate I’ve shown how astoundingly accurate it can be – especially on the newer units with the newer footpods.  This goes for both Garmin and Polar.  I’ve gone out and had long interval runs literally exactly the same (GPS vs footpod) – despite being in crazy conditions like snow.

With that, go download and enjoy the tool, and thanks for reading!

-

Other resources I’ve put together that may be of interest for those footpod fancy:

Garmin ANT+ Foot Pods- Everything you ever wanted to know
If you’re looking for literally over 40+ questions and answers on the footpod, I put together this post earlier this year that goes super in depth on the topic.  I’m pretty sure there’s no footpod left unturned.

2011 Sport Device GPS Accuracy In Depth- Part I / 2011 Sport Device GPS Accuracy In Depth- Part II
These recently published tests I put together talk to the GPS accuracy side of the house, allowing you to consider what types of scenarios terrain-wise you may want to use GPS data from to calibrate your footpod.

New partnership with Men’s Health, Urbanathlon & Gatorade

About 45 days ago you may have remembered my post about my rather photographic day up at  Men’s Health in NYC.  Well, I’m finally all set to tell you what it’s all about!

Back a number of months ago I was approached by Men’s Health Magazine regarding their Urbanathlon series.  Some of you may be familiar with it.  In short, they take a 10ish mile running race, and add a bunch of crazy obstacles in it.  You know, stuff like scaling school busses and going up and down stadium staircases.  Perfectly normal running race scenarios.  The races are held annually in Chicago, New York City and now San Francisco – attracting about 3-4K participants per race.

This year, they wanted to partner with two ‘well known bloggers’ (I believe that’s a pseudo-term for ‘Rockstar Celebrities’)…but regrettably, those folks weren’t available…so they got me instead. 

The idea being to host an insider blog focused around the race, in conjunction with other media formats to draw attention to both it as well as a few of their sponsors.

This past weekend that blog went live, allowing you to start to get a glimpse of what’s to come.  Over the next 4-5 months you’ll be getting a unique blend of posts from me over there.  I’ll be writing about everything from the ins and outs of mastering some of the obstacles that will be on the course come race day this year, to going out to some of the course venues and giving you a preview of what’s coming, to meeting up with some pretty cool sports fitness folks.  The goal being to give you a unique perspectives from both inside the race, and inside some of the sponsors.

For example, today – Tuesday – I’m actually up in NYC getting VO2 tested at Peak Performance, as well as getting a BOD POD test.  Many of you have asked me to put together a comparison of how the Withings and Tanita BC-1000 scales compare to systems like the BodPod Body Composition analysis.  And since both scales successfully made it through TSA in my carry-on luggage, I’m looking forward to seeing how they perform.  Some of that content will be up over on the Urbanathlon blog, and some of it will end up here.  In general, the posts over there will be shorter and more digestible – whereas the stuff over here will stay about the same (long and probably painfully detailed).  Fear not, that’s not changing.

In addition to all the Men’s Health goodness (PS…you’ll want to check out the upcoming print issue…), we’re also working with Gatorade and their new G-Series FIT line of products.  These products are essentially designed to bridge the gap between the higher calorie products they you know and love, and the desire to get something in your body that doesn’t wipe out the benefits of shorter workouts (I talk a bit about how I balance this with endurance efforts in one of the posts below).

A bit of a funny story from Monday about the Gatorade piece actually.  While we originally got to try out the new products way back when in early spring – we didn’t get much more than a preview pack in a small FedEx box.  Fast forward to yesterday when a call comes in from a mysterious number.  When I answer it, it’s the FedEx man saying he’s got something for me and wants to know if I’ll be around tomorrow.  Given I get probably 2-3 boxes a day at my place and I’ve never received a call from the FedEx man, I figured I might as well ask what’s up.  After all, I know from regular work that only really big things get phone calls (like when I shipped 16 pallets of computer stuff cross-country…that was fun!).  So I asked:

Rainmaker: “What’s in the shipment?”
FedEx Man: “A lot of granola bars”.
Rainmaker: “Oh. Umm…who are they from?”
FedEx Man: “Gatorade Corporation.”
Rainmaker: “Ohhh, ok.  Are we talking a lot of granola bars?”
FedEx Man: “Yeah, I see probably about 16 cartons.” (Note: I didn’t clarify exactly how big a carton was/is.)
Rainmaker: “Cool, anything else?”
FedEx Man: “Yeah, another 16 or so cartons of some drink stuff.”
Rainmaker: “OK…sure, I’ll be around tomorrow – drop-off then sounds good.”

(In reality, I won’t be home, but The Girl will be…and she’ll love me even more when that arrives onto the already crowded entry with wedding stuff ready to go out for next weekend.)

Of course, the important news for you guys is that nothing’s changing around these parts.  All the stuff you’ve come to know and love (and perhaps hate) – still remains the same.  But, in addition to all the goodness I sprinkle here (and on Slowtwitch), you can now find even more goodness weekly over on the Men’s Health Urbanathlon blog.

To start you off, here’s three posts that I’ve got over there…ready for your easily digestible enjoyment:

How to Take Aid Station Hydration While Running at Speed

In this post I illustrate the finer art to consuming beverages at high speeds in a running race.  This came about after a bit of a funny story with The Girl.  She helps out in this post as I re-create an aide station in a local park and get busy.  High speed video re-enactment included free of charge.

An Introduction to GPS Running Watches

While many of you folks might be old hat to my sports technology side, I recognize that perhaps it’s time for a bit of a starter course for everyone else.  Fear not, I’ll make converts out of everyone else soon…

Behind the Scenes

In addition to myself, there’s also Sarah – who focuses more on the diet and fitness angle.  In this post we explain a bit more of the backstory, as well as answer a bunch of questions related to the partnership.

So with that, I’m excited to offer you another avenue of DCR posts, and hope that you enjoy what will be a pretty interesting and totally different journey.  Thanks for reading!

2011 DC Tri Race Report –3rd Overall!

Prior to the race, many folks asked how I thought the race might go – and my only answer was to sum it up simply as a ‘Hail Mary’ of sorts.

The last week has been far from ideal as a lead-up to any race. Last weekend I had Boise 70.3.  Then on Sunday I flew across the country back to DC.  Monday I flew back across the country to Denver.  Tuesday I got my butt whipped up and down the mountains of Colorado on a bike by a bunch of former pro cyclists, immediately followed by a redeye flight home where I didn’t sleep at all.  And Thursday and Friday were equally as messy.  All in all I probably averaged 4ish hours of sleep per night.

So really, the only thing I had planned was to simply go out, have fun, and throw it all out on the line…and that I did.  After all, that’s why I decided for the shorter sprint (albeit a sprint with a 4.6 mile run).

Pre-Race

I arrived around 4:20AM – a wee bit earlier than I normally would.  But with the parking options typically tight down by the start area, I wanted to ensure I got a spot.  Luckily, there weren’t any problems there.

My bike had been racked on Saturday, as required with the mandatory day before racking – so really all I had to do was make my way about half a mile by foot over to transition area and finish my setup.

(That’s the Washington Monument in the background there)

Once I arrived I swung by the chip pickup place to grab my timing chip.  Like most races these days, they do chip pickup the morning of to reduce issues with folks forgetting chips.

From there I ensured my bike was all setup and I was soon ready to go.  As is mostly the case, a very clean transition area – just running shoes/bib/Garmin FR610 on the ground, and everything else on the bike.

From there it was time to go…and by that I mean ’go’:

Unfortunately, as seems to be the annual pattern at both of the races put on by this organizer, they short-order the port-a-potties.  I ended up waiting until some time later to finally head on over and make another pass.

Swim:

The sprint course was inset into the Olympic distance course –and it was pretty sweet to see how short it was in comparison to the Olympic course (or the half-Iron from last weekend):

The swim for this race was changed this year to a time trial style start – which meant that while you were grouped by age groups from an ordering standpoint, you went into the water in groups of 8-10, or individually one right after another.

Now when they first started the time trial system they were doing it in bunches of 8-10 people, and as you crossed a timing mat locked on the floating boom it would trigger your start (though I think there must have been a 10 second delay of some sort built in).  However, after a while, they ended up just streaming folks out non-stop…like a bunch of lemmings.  I grabbed this quick video of the earlier method to give you an idea of how it worked:

DC Tri 2011 Swim Time Trial Start

Once all of the Olympic athletes started at 6AM to 6:45AM, then the sprint folks went at 7AM.  It turned out my wave was next to last, so I didn’t go for a while.  And, somehow I ended up at the back of the line – so I was pretty much one of the last guys in my age bunch to head out.  This worked to my favor though, as it meant it was super-easy to know that any guy I passed was definitively behind me.

With that said – off into the water I went.

It’s a bit funny just jumping in and swimming – sorta like the NYC Triathlon last year in the Elite AG Wave with the dive start.

The nice part was that the 800m long swim course blew by compared to the longer swims I’m used to.  While there was tons of folks on on the course, I found that the majority of the folks were swimming a particularly long route (way wide) – oddly a trait I’ve seen before at both the Potomac races (Nation’s and DCTri).  So I was able to hold a very tight buoy line directly between each one and avoid virtually all of the folks and had my own clean water.

The only thing I didn’t avoid was the swim platform.  The ramp was floating a bit high and when I came up to it I whacked the living crap out of my shin.  So much so that I actually cut through the wetsuit and into my shin (my wetsuit has a gash in it now).  It’s like someone took a pairing knife to it…and me (I gots myself some blood!).

Nonetheless, my swim time was pretty descent at 10:43 – so I was happy with that.

Bike:

Because I was doing this race just for fun, I decided to take along the GoPro HD for a bit of a ride.  I used the seatpost mount and inverted the camera under the aerobars (it includes a handy software setting on the camera to flip the image back rightside up).  Here’s what it looked like mounted on the front of the bike:

I had practiced turning it on in about 3-4 seconds while I got other stuff set in transition – hopefully costing me minimal time.

The bike itself could be best summarized as very very quick.  Not impressive from a wattage standpoint, or from a heart rate standpoint (in fact, both were hilarious) – but rather, just cycling more or less as hard as I could where I figured I could still finish the race.

Nobody that passed me on the bike stayed past me (and only one person managed to briefly pass me).

So I compressed the whole 32 minutes down into 4 minutes.  If uploading the full length version was quicker, I’d do that – but at the moment I just did the abbreviated one (though the full length is chock full of plenty of entertaining moments). So here ya go:

DC Triathlon Bike Loop in 4 minutes

Of course, it definitely wasn’t my fastest bike split, nor my highest wattages – but it was definitely one of my hardest efforts…and probably one of the most fun.  As I noted earlier, I knew the bike was going to be ugly (especially after a short brick I did on Saturday was looking pretty grim) – so I just ignored pretty much everything the Garmin/Power/Speed/HR said and simply focused on biking hard.  Clearly for a longer event you’d want to apply a bit more ‘thought’ to the race plan, but for this I was hoping luck would pan out.  Well, that and all the training that Coach had us doing at higher intensity efforts for longer durations.

Now, perhaps the coolest little segment on the bike was actually my departure from it.  Going into T2 my flying dismount is so smooth that you can’t even tell where I got off the bike exactly, check out that little clip:

DC Triathlon T2 Flying Dismount from bike view

(PS: Here’s my previous posts on transition training)

Overall I had the third fastest bike of the day.  Not too shabby.

Run:

Now, for some reason the race organizers thought it would be ‘neat’ to run an extra 1.5 miles.  I’m not entirely clear on why.  See in my mind a sprint is – and always should be – a 5K run.  3.1 miles of awesomeness.

And in the case of the Olympic – a 10K run.  But here, the sprint included a bunch of unnecessary runnage (primarily to include running back and forth in front of the Capitol Building).  Here’s the unnecessary runnage highlighted:

Without this extra section, it would have been a perfect 5K.

That said, off on the run I went.

The run for me was mostly a ticking timebomb scenario.  I simply hoped I’d be able to find the end of the run before I imploded from exhaustion…hence why the extra 1.5 miles wasn’t helping my case.

Like my bike, this wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of my athletic running career.  It was simply running as hard as my body would put out.  Thus, you can see the slow decline in splits, and the steady incline in heart rates:

Note that from a heart rate standpoint I only manage to hit 190bpm about once or twice per year.  Hitting the mid-180’s for me takes serious hill repeats – and a really steep hill at that – to get me up there.  So the fact that I basically hung out there the entire race is pretty hilarious (and a clear indicator of my exhaustion level).

Had this been a different lead-up week, I would have expected these paces to be closer to 6-flat for this distance…and my HR’s much lower.

That said, I certainly can’t complain.  I gave it everything I had and ran as hard as my body would allow me to based on what I perceived necessary to still complete the race.

Soon, I found myself wandering towards the finish line…happy to be done!

The finish area is actually pretty cool in that as you finish the Capitol is to your back, thus making for ideal photos…aka…the money shot.

After finishing I wandered around the finish area a bit, and mostly cheered folks on from the DC Tri Club tent area (though I was an equal opportunity cheerer, I cheered most everyone I saw).

One of the nice things this race does is offer you a timing slip.  Just like getting a receipt with your splits.  So I headed over to the long line to see how I did (there wasn’t anything otherwise posted).  Once it printed out, I was pretty excited to see the following:

But unfortunately it didn’t list overall rankings.  Nonetheless – I was ecstatic to take the age group win!

However, I got a bit freaked out when they announced the M25-29 later on and I was notably missing.  Not only missing, but I had beat the announced M25-29 winner by a few minutes.  After a bunch of questions asked of the timing folks, nobody could really come up with an explanation.  I was pretty bummed.

But then, at the very end while we were trying to sort out why I was missing, they started announcing the overall winner and I heard my name being announced.  Holy cow…I didn’t expect that!  So I tossed my camera to a random bystander and he got these quick shots:

Above is the top three sprint finishers, with the guy on the left being the winner.  All three of us being DCTri members based on my understanding.  Thus 1-2-3, out of 1,312 in the Sprint.

Below is the sweet awards they gave out.  Quite nice!

Oh, and let’s not forget the finishers medals either…a giant (and heavy) penny!

With that I made the long trek back to my bike on the other side of town and headed over to celebrate at IHOP. Woohoo!

Thanks to everyone that I met/saw out there today that cheered me on, and all of you who said ‘Hi’.  Glad to meet everyone, and it was great hearing that everyone had really great races out there!

Thanks for reading!