Make Believe

Do any of you guys play make believe?

....Nah me either - that's kid's stuff.  But hypothetically speaking, here's how I would play if I did (in fact) play make believe.

Fabian Cancellara

1.  If I was riding my bike into a brutal headwind going about 2 miles an hour and happened to have shoe covers on, I'd pretend I was Fabian Cancellara and the shoe covers were actually part of a state-of-the-art time trial suit.  At least this would make 2 miles an hour feel like 3 miles an hour.

Tenzing Norgay

2.  If I was climbing a mountain but found myself exhausted within the last 1000 feet of the summit, I would pretend I was Tenzing Norgay on the first ascent of Everest.  Why Tenzing?  Because I'm fairly certain that he either beat Edmund Hillary to the top or saved his butt by pulling him up the final snowfield.

Kovas Palubinskas

3.  If I was running in the extreme cold and having a tough time of it, I would pretend I was Kovas Palubinskas and was wearing a ThermaJock.  Then I would be warm.  Everywhere.



 

Thomas Pynchon

4.  If I was staring at my computer trying to figure out what to post on the blog, I'd pretend I was Thomas Pynchon and attempt to dazzle you with an intricate story filled with equal parts science, conspiracy and paranoia.  But how would this play out?  Would I mix a high dose of vitamin B12 with a sports drink, start hallucinating and become convinced that there were poisonous snakes everywhere I ran?  Or worse, would the runner I just passed actually be a serial killer that had just turned around and was now following me?  And I might as well make the serial killer part of a super secret trail running society that's mission is to eradicate those who run on pavement.  Because this is what Pynchon would do if he wrote about endurance sports.

I know, this one's a little out there.  But then again, that's the beauty of make believe.

How would you play?  And I mean this hypothetically speaking, of course.

San Diego International Triathlon race report

Start of my wave.

The San Diego International Triathlon - I've been waiting for this one.  I registered for it Superbowl Sunday, and have been looking forward to it ever since.  I'm doing a bunch of races this year, but this one was a highlight.  Mary, Ian and I planned a little weekend getaway around it.  I trained pretty hard for it.  So you think I'd make sure that every "i" was dotted and "t" was crossed and then triple check them, right?

Wrong.  The Dip-Shit Of The Day Award was earned early, as in before I even got to the race.  I forgot my water bottles at the hotel.  And of course this is the one race where nobody at the race expo was swagging out free bottles.  I had an empty 1.5 liter Aquafina bottle in the car (which I could fill), but there was no way that was fitting on the bike.  So I had to do the bike without fluid.  This was not really the way I wanted to start the day.


Luckily it got better from there.

Between the International and the Sprint races, there where at least 1500 participants.  The transition area was huge, but by some sort of karmic luck, the spot for my wave couldn't have been in a better place - 10 feet from the swim entrance/run exit and 100 feet from the bike mount/dismount line.

My wave start was early - 6:55.  It was a deep water start, so I got in the water well behind the start line at about 6:35 to warm up.  This could have been 5 minutes earlier, but the bottom was at least 5 inches of disgusting muddy silt.  I stood at the shore with my feet sunk into the muck whining to myself about how gross it was.  Eventually I made 3 of the nastiest steps I have ever taken in my life to get into deep enough water to dive in.

At about 6:50, everyone in my heat moved up to the start line.  I posted up about 3 rows back on the inside, waited, and then the horn went off.

Traffic wasn't too bad, and I sensed right away that this swim was going to go pretty well for me.  I remember thinking to myself  "Great.  The faster I get the swim done, the faster I can get onto the bike and die of thirst."  But then I realized that at least I would die with a new PR swim in the record books, so I kept moving forward. 

1000 meters, one big rectangle.  When I crossed the timing mat, I forgot to hit the split button on my watch, but remembered about 30 seconds later.  I only mention this because the official split times have been mysteriously delayed until Wednesday.  The cumulative times where posted however, and they matched my watch.  So I am pretty sure that the times I have are close to accurate.  Anyway, my swim time was  21:29.  Not fast by any means, but the first time I have managed under 2 minutes per 100 yards.

 Coming out of the water, and yes there is someone from my wave behind me and even more thrilling some still in the water!

SWIM - 1000 Meters (1093 Yards) - 21:29; 1:57 per 100 yards

Except for having to suck down as much water as I thought I could handle, the transition went well.  I grabbed my bike and ran to the mount line.  I got on the bike, clipped in, and took off.

Here's how the bike course ended up - the first 4 miles was a slow but steady climb with I would guess about 400 or 500 feet of elevation gain.  Then it was two five mile rolling loops to the tip of the peninsula, and then 4 miles downhill.

This was a fantastic bike course.  Closed roads, good surface and good views to the extent you could enjoy them while riding in a race.  I'm not the greatest climber, but am fine on the rolling terrain.  And the downhill was a blast.

At one point I got passed.  And when I say "passed", I mean passed.  This guy blew by me like he was on Fabian Cancellera's bike.  I looked at the guy's leg markings, and saw that he is 56 years old.  This made me happy.

You may ask why this made me happy.  I have a new rule I follow.  Basically, when anyone my age or younger passes me, I get competitive.  When anyone older passes me, I get happy.  Because it serves as a reminder that I can still get faster and enjoy this sport for a long time.  Make sense?

Anyhow, I finished in 56:53, parched but alive.

 Top of the bike course on Point Loma.

 BIKE - 30 Kilometers (18.64 Miles) - 56:53; 19.66 MPH

Back in transition, I again sucked down as much water as I thought I could handle.  This was a bit of a mistake, as binge drinking before running is probably not a good idea.  So I had to burp my way through the first 2 miles before I settled into comfortable running.

The run course was point to point.  I'm not sure why they did this as they had to provide shuttle buses to get everyone back to the transition area.  But it was what it was, and to be fair it actually made the run course more interesting.

The last 4 miles felt really good, but I had lost a bunch of time in the first 2 miles.  What was also strange was that it almost felt like I had the course to myself.  There where people around, but it was no where near as crowded as the bike course was.  So being that I had some time on my hands, I started to obsess about whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.  Not being able to make a solid argument either way, I decided that it was just simply a "thing".  I had a mile to go.

I finished in 2:13:30.  Except for the run, I was pretty happy.  But it was only good enough for 54th out of 81 in my age group.  San Diego is a tough town. 

RUN - 10 Kilometers (6.2 Miles) 50:08; 8:05 minutes per mile

 End of the race.  Not to self - don't try to pull off the unzipped tri suit look ever again.  Also I need to break down and get a full sleeve to cover up the lame 1994 German punk rock tattoos.  Story for a different day.

After the race, we jumped on the shuttle bus back to the transition area.  I got my stuff together, we went back to the hotel, cleaned up and headed off to Legoland.  Except for watching a Hell's Angel looking dude who was sitting at the "roll the ball into the hole to make your camel move forward" (or whatever it's called) carnival game and stealing stuffed animals from every poor kid who threw down $3 to play against him, it was a great time.

Sunday Stuff

I had a pretty good Sunday. Mary and Ian drove out to the desert to visit Mary's parents. Since I had a pretty busy week last week and have to leave for Vancouver (again) Monday, Mary was kind enough to let me have a day at home.


This is the bike I bought when I decided to start doing triathlon. It's a Scattante, which is the Performance Bicycle house brand. I got it for $600. From what I understand, it's a private labeled Fuji frame - aluminum with a carbon fork. Over the last year, It's become a bit of a project bike, though originally not by choice. Though the frame was decent, pretty much everything else on the bike wasn't. First I kept breaking spokes, so I had to replace the wheels with a more robust Mavic wheelset. Inside of 300 miles I blew out the side walls of both tires and had to replace those. Then I broke the seat. Eventually, I got an extra stem when I bought my Specialized TT bike and acquired a few more parts.

At this point I think the only original parts are the frameset, the bottom bracket, and the front and rear derailleur. By now, the bike has cost me more than it would have if I had bought a better bike in the first place, but who knew? It's actually been fun to play around with it.

I'd been ignoring it lately but today I decided to take it out for a ride. And I'm glad I did. There's something to be said about "stretching out" on a road bike once in awhile. The ride was downright comfy. I went out and did 30 extremely pleasant miles down PCH, up the Santa Ana River Trail, and then back across to my house. Here's the Garmin data:



After the ride I came home and watched stage 2 of the Tour De Suisse. It was quite the finish today - a 60 something rider sprint. Cervelo Test Team rider Heinrich Haussler won the stage. Fabian Cancellara still retains the yellow jersey. By the way, Cancellara's time trial yesterday was amazing.

Just after six, I headed out for a run. I used the Vibram 5 Fingers today, and I am now at the point where the good is outweighing the bad. The way I feel when I run in them is awesome. Stepping on small rocks is not awesome, but I'm getting used to it.

Regardless, I'm going to be making a point of rotating these guys into my training once a week. I think it will end up being well worth it. I'm still a little slower in them than I am in shoes, but I think that comes down to being more careful about where I step. I'm not sure why, but my legs feel really good after running in them - they have a nice tingle in them.

Anyway, here's the data on the run:



Once I get this Vancouver trip out of the way, it will be time to put the finishing touches on training for the San Diego International Triathlon. I'll be home Wednesday night, so back on the bike Thursday for sure.

War Of The Superbikes

This stuff keeps getting better and better. Not only do we need to be concerned with with pro cyclists injecting Erythropoieten and Testosterone, now Fabian Cancellara (who won Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders) is being accused of riding an electric bike.

I'd like to believe this is a crock. But then again, I'd like to believe in Unicorns too. Who knows?

Read the story here.