I’d like to say that everything went to plan, but things did not. Normally I would have a long race report with a fairly vivid recap of what happened during the race. I don’t have it in me today.

Yesterday was a soul crushing sort of day. If you have never experienced the heat and wind on course here, I can think of no comparison. The wind waited until race day to show up, and when it came, it came to party.

The swim was made challenging by the stiff breeze. There was a good bit of current in the swim, and loads of hargy-bargy. I have done quite a few mass start swims. I don’t know what with this lot, but the men were aggressive, and not all that nice about it. I had my legs pulled under me, and my mask intentionally ripped off. One gentleman took exception to anyone drafting off him by wildly flailing his legs behind him in some sort of motorboat impersonation.

The volunteers, usually a bedrock of these races, were ill trained and ill informed. No one seemed to be able to answer even basic questions like “where can I throw this away?”  Never mind an even sillier question like “where am I going?” Nothing terrible, but certainly frustrating when competing.

I was a little slower out of the water than I wanted to be, but I think everyone was slow. Looking at my time, I was in the top third. I’m no great swimmer, so that was fine.

During the transition, I got into an argument with one of the volunteers about my race number. I had it on my back with a race belt. He would not release me until I pulled it around front. I tried to point out that not only were there others with it on there back, there were racers without any number on their uniforms at all. That soaked up about 2 minutes. Shame on me for getting into it with him.

The bike went to plan for the first half. My goal was to get to the turn around at Hawi with a pace of 20mph, and then let fly with the tail wind. Sadly, the way the wind works around this island, we had a stiff headwind going up the hill to Hawi, and as soon as we got to the turn off back to the Queen K, there was a head wind there. The last 8 miles were a complete joke. I averaged 13.5mph or some such silliness. According to officials, at the terminal station at the bottom of the hill, gusts were up to 40mph. Awesome.

When I got to transition for the run, I was treated to my whole family being on the other side of the fence from my bike spot. My 7 year old daughter knew where #1277 was, but the volunteer did not. Imagine my confusion when they racked my bike and I opened the transition bag and none of my stuff was in it. My spot was 50 feet away.

At this point in the race, I knew it was not a PR kind of day. I felt good, and was anxious to get out on the run. About 1/2 mile into the run, I knew I was in trouble. Until I can look at the HR data from my computer, I won’t know anything. I know that I cold not recruit my legs to run. At all. They didn’t hurt; they just didn’t function. I felt like there was a mass sloshing around in my gut, and I could not put my feet to a trot for more than 100m at a time.

I considered my options and chose to walk the first mile, so see if getting my HR under control was the right move. I didn’t panic. I just went into race management mode. Sadly, no amount of walking would get me running. It was incredibly frustrating. I took on water, ice, sponges…whatever I could get at the aid stations. Nothing was working.

It wasn’t until probably mile 11 that I could string together longer trots. I didn’t run an entire mile the whole race. Groan. So much hard work. The wind on the bike was punishing. The heat ultimately did me in. If I had to guess, there was a combination of dehydration and heat exhaustion. I will have to spend some time with Coach Ben when we get back to Seattle.

Ultimately, I have to learn something from this, and move on. I have another half Ironman in 7 weeks. My goal is to simply improve on what happened here. I have been through this already – a rough first race of the season. I bounced back and had a great mountain bike season. It’ll be all good.

In a word…hot. Well, another word. Wind.

It is really hot here. Things are made all the more challenging by the fact that we are coming from Seattle. It was low 50s. And raining.

So here I arrive on what looks like the surface of Mars, with a couple of palm trees and some sod thrown in for good measure, and am trying to maintain calm ahead of the race on Saturday.

The lava rock fields are absolutely stunning. I have never seen anything like this in my life, so it makes the pre-race rides and runs all the more interesting because I keep thinking to myself “hey, look at that!” Actually, it was more like “squirrel!”

I did a very very short bike ride to make sure the bike techs didn’t break anything, and to get my legs a little warm before going for a run. The run was supposed to be 10mins at E pace, then 3x5min at what I am targeting for race pace (with my HR under 160), followed by 12mins of E pace. I was surprised that the first two 5 min blocks came in at 7.6mph, or 7:53 pace. However,the last one was 8.1mph, or 7:24 pace. With the 1 minute rest periods and the brackets of E pace running, I totaled out around 8:40 pace. 8:30 for the whole of the run segment would put me at A+ time according to my coach. Let’s hope that I can hold it together, but all in, things feel really good. Though, with the heat, my HR is drifting up, so I am going to have to be really careful there.

On a more fun note, look at the size of that Koi. Are you kidding me? I know that scale is hard to get in this picture, but there are some others in the shot. This is the largest Koi I have ever seen. He was swimming through the pond like he owned the joint, and he did. Out-sized every other Koi in the pond by quite a bit. I was left wondering – is this a genetic abnormality, or do they always get this big? I have always heard that Koi make excellent targets for hawks and falcons, so maybe Darwin keeps the population size under control. Who knows, but this one was pretty impressive.

Today was supposed to get me acquainted with the swim course and part of the bike course. I was incredibly impressed with Hapuna Beach. Really beautiful, the water was warm and crystal clear, and the sea was calm. It was so amazing that I even got to see a turtle swimming along the sea floor while I was out putting in a solid 2000m. Could have been more. I was in the water for about 35 minutes total.

After getting out of the water, I jumped in the car to get up the road a bit so that I could put in a 38 mile effort from Kawaihae to the bike turn around at Hawi. This was supposed to be an L2 effort, but my adrenaline was flowing knowing that I was riding the Kona bike course.

From everything I had heard about the Kona bike course, I came in very afraid. People made it sound like a suffer fest full of hills, and a giant climb into Hawi. I am really glad to have done the pre-ride, because those specific fears were completely unfounded.

Short of the 7 mile run into Hawi, the road was no worse than Hwy 202 back home. There were undulations for sure, but based on all of the local riding I had done in prep for this, none of the course I rode today put me into any difficulty.

I will say that the wind is real, and it’s spectacular. We have wind back in Seattle, but this was something else. It was waiting for me as I turned up the hill to Hawi, and it made me not want to be on the bike for that part of the ride. Since I am riding my deep rim wheels, I was fighting the bike the whole way up. It was slow, it was tortuous, and it was challenging to keep my heart rate under control, especially since this was not supposed to be a hard ride.

All told, it took me 1 hour to get over the 18 miles to Hawi. That was not the confidence inspiring ride I was looking for out of today. I lost a ton of time on that climb, because I know I was moving quickly through the undulations. Good data to have for the race on Saturday, especially since I will be pushing much harder.

Coming back was a different story. I made the distance in 45 minutes. The tail wind coming down from Hawi was nice, but I was surprised when the wind shifted direction. That made handling a bit more challenging. It also made me want to push that much harder to get up the hill and back before the wind shifts. I turned around in Hawi at 10:05. In theory, I should be up there :30 earlier on Sat, and down before the wind changes directions.

The one feeling I couldn’t shake on the ride was the massive smile on my face. If there was a wikipedia entry for shit eating grin, I would be tempted to edit it and put a picture of myself from the ride. To be on the Kona bike course, with all of its history, and having watched Ironman races on NBC since 2000 (and owning the DVDs of all races back to 1991), it was absolutely amazing to be on the bike course, to see the bleached coral rock messages on the side of the road, and to marvel in wonderment at how lucky I am to be here.

The day has started out in a much more peaceful way than I would have thought. Most fights with 3 kids are incredibly stress inducing. Getting through the airport is never easy, and this time we were carting around my bike box.

Taking a cue from my younger days, when we pulled up curbside to check the bags, I immediately palmed some cash into the skycap’s hand. Pay the bartenders early, and they will take care of you all night. Same theory. One of the bags is too heavy? No problem. Supposed to charge you an arm and a leg for your bike box? How about just a couple of fingers. Super low stress, and highly recommended.

The flight had quite a few competitors. One gal was flying in from Boston for this race. She’s done 9 full Ironmans and is trying to qualify for the world championships. It’s great to see all of these athletes on the plane, and somewhat reassuring to see all the nervousness. It’s been 6 years since I raced this distance, so the nerves are there. However, as I was riding the trainer this morning, I had a pleasant sense of calm. I feel “ready.” I can’t really think of any long course race at which I have competed and felt that way. We’ll see how I feel once we get off the plane, and my body is assaulted by the heat, humidity, and the wind.

As I approach my first big multi-sport race of the season, I want to take a moment to do two things. First, I want to talk about setting goals, and what a difference it makes. Second, I want to talk about good coaching.

It took me a few years into my working career to come to understand the importance of setting goals the right way. I did what many people did when they set goals. I made non-specific, and non-measurable claims about things I want to do. “I will lose weight” or “I want to get a better paying job.”

I don’t need to spend a long post on the process, as there is plenty of content out there on how to set goals in the right way, but I will at least endeavor to give the high level summary.

Goals must be specific and measurable, they must be yours, they must have a expiration date, and they much be achievable.

When I started my training for this season, I had one big goal: to qualify for the 70.3 World Championships in the 40-44 age group. It’s very specific, measurable, mine, and has a timeline. It’s questionable whether I have the talent to make it achievable, but I have the desire and I will work my ass off. There are sub goals that tie into that big one, and those have to do with progress on my training.

To that end, I hired a coach (actually, my awesome wife gave me a gift for my b-day of professional coaching for a year). Why? Because I don’t know everything I need to know in order that I could achieve my goals. I found a coach (or mentor, two sides of same coin) to help me achieve those goals. And it’s made a huge difference. While this is a physical training observation, it applies to anyone in their career as well.

With only a few big races this year, it’s been hard to have check points along the way about how things were going. I have had vague check points, but nothing measurable. Thanks to the power of the interwebs, Strava provides a set of tools that allow me to see progress on non race related training efforts.

The chart at the top is the testament to the progress that Ben at VO2Multisport has brought to my game. Those two efforts are on the same road, on the same bike. The only difference was the wheel set (though both were aero wheels), and the training plan Ben put me on for this season.

This 7.9 mile segment on Hwy 202 is pretty flat with only 217 feet of elevation gain. My HR was actually lower on the faster ride, and I was 25% faster just 5 months later. That’s confidence inspiring.

So thank you Ben. It’s been a season of firsts for me, some solid PRs, and I am anxious about toeing the line at the Honu 70.3 race in 2 weeks. There are some high quality races left in my season, and I hope I keep moving forward.

4 hours 12 minutes. Crossing the line last year in 4 hours and 12 minutes I knew I had to make a change. Sometime around March of last year I had decided I wanted to get my riding engine back, and that I was going to start racing again in earnest. My best training days were long since forgotten in a haze of child rearing. My plan last year was simple: ride more and I would get back to where I was.

Having made that decision last year, I signed up for a 30 mile race in the NW Epic series at Stottlemeyer. I figured, wrongly, that I would get back to my previous race shape in a couple of months. The calamity of youthful exuberance is funny because of inexperience. Those same errors made in your late 30s are far less so. I should have known better. I crossed the line in 4 hours and 12 minutes. The leader won in 2hr29min. Yeah, I was almost 2 hours off the lead.

During that race, there was a moment when I was struggling, and I mean really struggling, up a fire road climb when the 60 mile leader came through. He was on lap 4 to my lap 2. To repeat – finishing 60 miles before I finished 30. I remember that moment because Logan Wetzel, a name I would become all too familiar with in the coming year, went flying by me like I was standing still. I remember that moment very clearly because I let loose an expletive along the lines of “holy f@ck!” I must have surprised him, because he looked back over his shoulder, standing on the pedals, flying up the hill, and with a huge smile, and not a hint of irony, said simply “yeah!” Then he was gone.

It was that memory that stuck with me over the last 12 months. I really didn’t want to get passed that late into the 60 mile race. When I marked down Stottlemeyer on the calendar for this year, way back in December, I had a goal. Improve. It wasn’t very specific.

As I have been training with Ben at VO2Multisport these past 6 months, I have had moments where my bag o’ crap was getting in the way. He had already given me the gem “if you only look at your average pace, expect to have an average race” when I was whining about how my training pace looked so slow compared to what I had been doing in my late 20s and early 30s. He’s done his best to reassure me, but my neuroses continue to haunt me.

I pulled together a really good half marathon earlier in the season which built up some confidence. My XC trail riding has been improving to the point where I have been the top rider for my team for the last two races. That’s mostly due to Ben’s training and my engine. I think Nate had the best comment this weekend when he said “if you ever learn how to actually ride a bike, we’re all in trouble.” It was high praise from the king of awesome when it comes to going downhill fast. My technical riding skills need work – but it’s all fixable.

Stottlemeyer was the first of my big races for the season. I really wanted to do well, and as we got closer, I did set a goal. 3 hours and 30 minutes seemed like a reasonable target given my performance last year. I still haven’t had a monster great ride on a bike yet this season. Even when racing at Lord Hill, a course seemingly built for my particular talents, I performed just OK.

With the race just days away, I was very concerned about my training schedule for the half ironman, and what it would do to my legs. On Thurs night I had to execute what worked out to be a 90 minute hammerfest to get a gut check on my half-iron pacing. Riding around the pacNW for me has been humbling. I thought I had a big engine, but long climbs tend to cause me to go too hard too early, and the lactic acid just pools. I was, therefore, elated with the results from Thurs, as the ride was mostly on flat-ish roads (E. Lake Sammamish, for those interested). Here’s a segment cap from the Strava posting.

An average speed of 23.2 was way outside my expectations. And that was only part of the ride. I maintained around that pacing for the entire ride. The session was 4×12 at HIM pace, with rest, warmup and cool down thrown in. I felt great and all of the sudden started thinking maybe sub 3:30 at Stottlemeyer was possible. Not to let me rest, Ben had me run a half marathon on Friday morning before work. That too was done without killing my legs. The pace wasn’t a PR or anything, nor was it meant to, but to have run a solid pace over that distance and not have “dead legs” was great.

With all that as pre-amble, Saturday morning was upon us as most of the Project529 team members who were racing were gathered in the Edmonds Ferry line-up. It was going to be another gorgeous day of racing out on the Kitsap peninsula. We were all pretty excited. The fact that this distance was a first for Brian, Raman and Jun was also a bonus.

It goes without saying that most races will have a glitch or a problem. Mine surfaced early when, about 1 hour before the race, I made the horrifying realization that I had left my HR strap and riding computer at home. Given that all of my training had been to HR plans, this was a mini-disaster. The team tried to rally and find me a setup, but we couldn’t. Alex had a spare watch and strap, but the batteries in the watch were dead. I appreciated all of the effort, but I resigned myself to my own mistakes, and knew that I would have to ride on feel. Not the best plan.

I also made the change of mounting up my new SRAM Rise 60 front. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake when mounting my Maxxis Aspen on the front, and it didn’t bead correctly. Had it not been for Bryce at the FSA tent, I would have had a very, very short day. I thought my wheel was out of true from my quick warmup. He correctly diagnosed the problem, and fixed it for me. Great guy, and awesome to have such great volunteers on course.

This race was meant to be a rehearsal for my fueling and sodium strategy for the half-iron in 3 weeks time. I am still tweaking the formula to get little to no GI distress, and reduce the cramping. The Gu/water mix that worked reasonably well last weekend at Soaring Eagle was back in action, but this time I mounted the flask on the seat post. The location worked out MUCH better than last week, and I know I have solved that problem going forward.

When the gun went off, my strategy was simple. Ride with Raman, Brian and Alex through the first lap, and then press the issue. This strategy was in effect for about the first 45 minutes. The pace was slow, but that was more because of the riders that got in front of us when they red lined it to get forward, only to be sucking wind on the first few climbs of singletrack, and holding people up.

As the first lap was progressing, I had zero idea as to what my heart rate was. I am sure I was pestering Raman because I kept asking his, and the time, to ensure I was consuming my calories and not pressing too hard. I was feeling good, and we were cruising along. When we got to the first section of trail where the single track dumps out to the flat-out section, I pulled Raman along in my draft, but at some point he told me to take off. So I did. I loved that section of the trail because it’s not technical. It’s fast and flowy, and provides huge grins.

Deep into the first lap I caught up to Nate. I pulled up behind him as we got to the second long single track section and was ready to witness poetry. It’s hard enough to follow Nate when he’s on his Santa Cruz Nomad, but he just built up his Santa Cruz Tallboy LTc and was racing/riding for the first time this weekend. Nate on a 29er is bad. Nate on a lighter bike is even worse. My pacing blew through my comfort zone and into what I call “yikes” as I tried, very unsuccessfully, to follow him on the singletrack descents. My only saving grace was that as he would close down riders in front of him, they would wait until there were two riders behind them before letting us through. So went the inchworm of fear of my lap.

Somewhere in that part of the race, I lost the front and the rear. As I was sliding off the trail, I put power to the rear wheel and saved it, but my left knee smashed into the handlebars and the pain was intense. At one point I thought I was going to pull off and retire from the race, but I convinced myself the pain would subside (despite not even being able to stand on the pedals) once some more blood circulated. I was mostly right, in that I was able to box up the pain, but it’s still hurting two days later.

We eventually arrived at a fire road section and I asked Nate if he wanted a draft. He said “it’s a long race, and my pace is good. Go get ‘em.” So I clicked down a couple and took off.

The rest of the race was rather uneventful save one moment deep into the second lap when the 60 mile leaders came through. This time they were on lap 3, so I knew I was doing better than last year. Logan and the rest of that train were riding at a pace that made Nate look like a baby. Even today, as I write this, I am marveling at the pace. I tried to get on the back of the train as they passed me just as we dumped onto a fireroad. I figured I still felt strong, so why not? That lasted about 50 feet. Logan is my rabbit, and I continue to work to get faster. That group was inspiring.

I definitely started to feel some pain in the second lap, and the snap was out of my legs on some of the harder climbs. It might be that I was down on calories. I need to chat with Ben about that. The only thing that kept me really pushing the effort was a mantra as I attacked the singletrack. “Nate is behind you, and with every turn, he is closing you down. Move it.” I really did not want to get caught.

With the final little bit of goat track singletrack in front of me, and knowing that I was mere minutes from finishing, I was stocked at how good I really felt. The race had gone pretty well, despite not having a computer, HR monitor, or timing element. I felt mostly good, and not like I was pushing beyond the limits of my legs. As I popped out of the forest and into the finishing chute, I looked for a clock, but there was none. I crossed the finish line feeling great, and really happy. Truly happy.

It wasn’t until quite a bit later that I found out how I did. 3 hours 4 minutes. A full 1 hour and 8 minutes faster than last year. I know I could have gone faster earlier, and maybe arrived under 3 hours, but that just rolled off my back. In times past I might have dwelled on that, but in that moment, as I left the finishing area to quickly change and wait for the rest of the team, I was really, really happy with how the race went. There’s always next year for more improvement, but that was a monster chunk of time to take out.

Almost every 529 team member finished. Unfortunately Rob had to pull off after one lap with some back cramps. Both Raman and Brian came in under 3:30, which was their goal. Very happy for them. My genetic freak of a best friend showed up largely untrained, certainly not trained for this distance, and went faster than he did last year. It boggles the mind how strong Alex is. Jun also had a great day, finishing strong and just over 4 hours. Ty also took 30 minutes off his time from last year. Mike, also new to Stottlemeyer this year, put up a very impressive 3:28. As for Nate, he almost caught me, finishing just two minutes behind me, but 23 minutes faster than last year.

As I get ready for my next big test of the year, I am feeling better about my bike legs. I have no idea how I will react to the heat and humidity in Hawaii, and I am not sure how well the bike course will play to my riding skills/abilities, but I leave this first test with a pretty big grin on my face, and happy to know that I was way more prepared this year than I was for this race last year, which bodes well for the next test. The VO2Multisport plan continues to push my body to new records and beyond my goals.

My specific goal for the half? Sub 5:15. My super stretch A goal? Sub 5. There. I’ve finally said it out loud. My previous PR on a chip timed course is 5:44, at the Gulf Coast Tri, where I stomped at 2:39 bike, only to put up a 2:25 on the run. My last half iron was 6:38 at Buffalo Springs, a course that detonated my legs on the bike, and beat me into savage submission with the heat and climbs on the run.

With the sprint distance portion of my mountain bike racing season coming to a close, I was pretty excited to have two things happening. First, the race was at what amounts to my home course. I know the terrain, have ridden the course (most of it anyway) many times, and feel very comfortable there. Second, it was an incredibly beautiful day. Just about every race has been in cold and or wet weather. This was a day where there actually a risk of cramping due to heat.

With this being a home race, the Project 529 team was out in force. There was a healthy handful of yellow Santa Cruz bikes; more than I had seen at any race this season. The turnout overall for a Budu race seemed light, especially given the weather. However, it was Cinco de Mayo, so who knows.

I had a single plan for the race. I wanted to keep my heart rate under control, and work my nutrition plan ahead of the NW Epic race next weekend at Stottlemeyer and the half Ironman next month. My experimentation with nutrition this week was to pre-mix Gu and water in a flask, and consume my calories that way. I also wanted to work salt tablets into my race plan, as Hawaii will have heat and humidity which we don’t have here in the Northwest.

It’s never a good plan to introduce too many new things for a race, and I knew before the gun went off that I would likely have problems with how I stashed my bottle with the Gu/water mix. During my pre-ride, my knee hit the plastic holder which I had zip tied to my top tube, and I thought that there was a change the bottle would pop out during the race. I should have listened to that inner voice.

As the gun went off, I was pretty shocked to see Christian (“VB” as we call him) take off like a scalded cat. He was sitting in 4th or 5th position heading up the fire road. I knew that he wanted to drop into the downhill single track and let his downhill skills carry him forward, and I didn’t want to get in his way as he is leaps and bounds faster than I am downhill. The two guys between us were holding his pace, so I figured I would just settle in and let the race come to me. He’s fast, and I was white knuckling that section of the course. Following him was was without question the fastest I have ever gone through there.

As soon as we turned into what I will call the “goat track” section of the course, we caught some of the 50+ racers who went off in the start wave ahead of us. As we closed one of them down and were yelling for him to pull over, he pulled off to the right. He was nice enough to let VB go, and the two guys in front of me, but for some unknown reason he pulled back onto the trail in front of me. I collided with his frame and went over the handle bars into the weeds. I was…pissed. Looking back, I know how mad I must have appeared because as Alex went by me, he was shouting at me to settle down and collect myself.

I remounted and threw my plan out the window. That’s my biggest problem. Lack of rev limiter, and the red mist descends when I race. I got back on the bike and dropped the hammer to get back to VB. In short order, my knee knocked my Gu flask off my top tube and hit the ground. More swearing. To stop at that point would have been stupid, as we were still quite bunched up from the start. So to sum up, within 10 minutes, I have hit the ground and my nutrition is lost to the forest. Perfect.

I continued to hammer, but knew that I needed to settle down. I needed to let the race come to me. I slowed my thoughts down enough to consider that there was a chance that my flask would still be on the ground on lap 2. I had planned on a swig at the start of lap 2, so this would just be a 10 minute delay. Just as I was processing those thoughts, I passed Alex at a log pile crossing on which he put himself on the ground. Then we made the turn up the big climb. I was completely cotton-mouthed and my HR was 181. Exactly the opposite of where I wanted to be. So I settled into the climb and took on some water. I really tried to focus on getting my HR down and calming my mind, while at the same time allowing my engine to work as I knew it could.

I finally caught and passed VB and continued to move forward through the field. The first lap was a bit too fast for me, and I knew that if I was going to make it through all 15 miles of the race, I needed to cool my jets a bit.

As I started lap 2, I saw my family had arrived. There’s something really special about seeing your wife and kids cheering for you on the side of the course. It gives a bit of a boost to an otherwise weary body.

Lap 2 was pretty uneventful. As we hit the first uphill section, I was able to look behind me and see that VB had made up quite a bit of time on the downhill section. I didn’t want him to get around me, but knew that I had nothing for him when the trail goes down. However, he passed me when, as luck would have it, my Gu flask was on the side of the trail, intact, and I was able to stop, pick it up, take a swig, and pull at my jersey to get it into a pocket (under my camelback) so as not to risk losing it again. I almost immediately got past him again on a climb when he pulled over with something in his eye.

The back half of the lap was spent playing tag with a couple of riders. I was sandwiched in between a 50+ guy and someone in my age group. When I finally managed to get in front, the age group guy started stalking me. I could hear that he was close enough, and when I asked if he needed by, he just kept saying that he didn’t feel that ambitious. As we made the final turn up the fire road, I knew I had put time into him and didn’t see him again either.

With my Gu flask handy, I took my last swig, and my last salt pill, and still felt good. My sweat rate was high, but this was also the first 80+ degree day of the year, and certainly the warmest riding conditions I have seen since last year. I felt really good and decided it was time to really push on the last lap. Sadly, my body had other plans. Everything started to slow down. My tires felt like they were glued to the roots instead of going over them. I was making tired mistakes. My lines were not clean.

Even with my pace seemingly slowing, I was still closing down riders from the other classes. As we crested the final climb of the day, I knew that I was in good shape, and I really wanted to get the guy in front of me. In looking at the time sheets, he finished :58 in front me. From where we were on the course, I think I managed to get within 20 seconds, but every time I got close, he managed to find another gear and go faster. We accordianed like this for the last mile and a half, but he eventually put too much time into me. I made a mistake on one of the final turns, completely over cooking it, and knew my race with that guy was done. Then on the final turn, I almost dumped the bike, having put my foot down and only just managing to save it.

Overall, I had a good race. Despite my feelings that I was going much slower, it turns out I was faster on lap 3 than 2. I was the top rider from Project 529, which was a great feeling as well. The timesheets tell an interesting story. I was 29th overall in Sport class, which probably had 70-80 riders in total. I was 8th/14 in the 30-39 age group. Two minutes would have put me into 6th place. First through fifth was populated by the guys who, if you asked me, would be great if they were riding in the expert class. 1:08 to 1:12 was the time bracket for the top 5, with six minutes back to sixth place. However, our first place guy, at his pace, would have put him in last place for the expert class. Those guys are FAST.

From a nutrition stand point, I am not sure Gu is working for me. The last two race weekends, where I have gone exclusively Gu, have left me in GI distress for hours after the race. I need to talk to my coach about this. It’s possible that I am taking on too many calories, or not enough. I don’t know enough about nutrition to know what to do.

I also have learned a few more things about myself. I really, really need to get the rev limiter under control for these sprint distance races. The pace at the front is unyieldingly fast. At the first race at Dash Point, which was a shorter race overall by 17 minutes for the leaders, I was 17 minutes off the front. Soaring Eagle this weekend was roughly 1/3 longer in distance, and I was only 12 minutes off the front. I went from almost DFL to a top 10 finish. I’ll take that progress and build on it for next year.

I won’t be doing any more full lap pre-rides on day of race. Even though I rode the pre-ride much slower than race pace, that was still 40 minutes of hard-ish riding I probably don’t need to be doing. Next year I will get a better pre-race warmup routine.

That’s it for the short course mountain bike racing this year. Next weekend is the first of the epic distance races – 30 miles! It should be tons of fun, and I hope to improve on my placing last year, where I was 58th of 69 in the Mens open division, and 1h43m off the lead with a whopper of a time of 4:12:01. My race fitness this year far exceeds last year. The stretch goal for this year is 3hrs, with a realistic goal of 3:30.

It was a day of surprises for me this weekend. I was asked by my coach on Friday afternoon whether I had considered racing the Mt. Rainer Duathlon, run by Budu Racing, to occur on Sunday the 28th. I had not considered it, as my race dates for this year have centered around mountain bikes and triathlons. Beyond that, I had never raced in a duathlon. No specific reason; it’s just that I had never undertaken such an endeavor.

In looking at the course profile map, it was clear that the bike portion was going to be challenging. There was a pretty sizable climb right in the middle of the lap, and since I was going to be racing the long course, I was going to be going up the mountain twice.

Race data for this race is a bit difficult to pull apart. For some unknown reason, neither Garmin nor Strava make it easy to flag a workout as a race of mixed types. As such, you are either left with a bunch of runs, or a bunch of bikes. Lame.

First, I wanted to thank Budu for the organization of this event. Though a small event, the event staff, in particular the road minders, did a very good job of managing traffic. In any race where you are on the road, managing the road is critically important and they did a great job. The on course water support left a little to be desired, but this was a smaller race.

I also want to thank my coach. Ben Bigglestone is doing a great job of improving what I called out as my liability – my running. To have gone sub 8min/mile over 9 miles, even with a 30 mile bike ride made me extremely happy. The training this year with VO2MultiSport has been a great experience.

In looking at the run, I am quite surprised to see that I did so well for the first 5+ mile run. My first mile was 6:54! That was completely unthinkable for me several months ago. My slowest was an 8:01, and that was on a section with a few steep, and high, rollers. All the other sections, with slight elevation changes, centered around 7:30, and my HR was in the mid to high 160s. The race time says 7:41 pace. 119th / 225 racers. Not stellar placing, but it was my target pace, and I hit it, without putting myself into difficulty.

The bike was something of an oddity to me. I felt like I was riding very well, despite the headwinds on part of the course, the rain, and even hail at the top of one of the climbs. There was that one tough climb, and in all honesty it’s smaller and tamer than some of the climbs around my house, but for some unknown reason I ran out of gears. Not to the point of being out of gas, but having one more tooth on top of the 26 would have been appreciated. However, no one ever passed me on the climb. I put distance into those near me on both ascents. Looking at the data, it’s just strange that I was as slow as I was overall on the climb.

For most of the ride, I was hovering around 21.5 mph, with a good handful of the miles averaging 22-23 mph. I felt really good, and was keeping my HR under control. That said, I had an interesting experience on the second loop. I was tired. Not exhausted, but sleepy. That has never happened in a race. I remember thinking “I could take a nap.” Strange.

I was also surprised by the amount of pain generated in my neck. Having broken it two years ago, I have not yet raced on aero bars since the accident. The downhill section of the race was loads of fun, but I was touching speeds approaching 45 miles per hour. I used that section to absolutely hammer on the pedals, and made up probably .25 – .5 miles on the people in front of me. You know you are going fast when you hear “what the hell?!” “holy shit!” and “f!ck!!!” as you go by people. If only I could translate downhill fearlessness into uphill expediency and efficiency. That said, it took me close to 2 miles to ride out my neck pain on the first loop, and about 1 mile on the second loop. I didn’t deduce that the pain was being generated from the wind pressure on the crown of my head from the downhill until the pain surfaced on lap 2. The neck is still pretty sore today, so that’s something on which I need to work.

I’m not really sure how I am feeling about my cycling at this point. I guess it is as I have always been – fast-ish on the flats, and fast enough uphill, but when asked to combine the two, I guess I get into trouble. The riding in and around Seattle doesn’t benefit my style all that well. That’s what I get for building my base while living in the flatlands of Houston. The race in Hawaii will be, at the very least, interesting. I am going to have to spend a good deal of time reconsidering what I believe my overall talent potential is on the bike, and whether it’s possible to dream of being called one of the “fast guys.”

The second run was slower. My feet were still frozen from the mix of rain, ground water, and cold wind on the bike. It took me about 2.25 miles to get feeling in my feet back. Sadly the second run was only 3.85 miles. The first 2 miles were 8:10 and 8:24, but the second 2 were at 8:00 and 7:45 pace. Always nice to neg split, and to get faster into the run. Better still, I didn’t walk once. Not once. That has never happened in any race mixed sport race over sprint distance. I felt strong through the second run. I had slight GI distress, but managed through it. Race time says 7:59 pace. 118th / 225.

The biggest surprise of the day was that I ran better than I rode. That has never happened. Ever. That little fact isn’t helping what I would call my shaky confidence going into the Honu Half in June. For whatever reason, I simply haven’t pulled it together on the bike. I thought I was flying for most of the bike. Turns out that the climbs crushed my average speed down. My flat sections were speedy, but those uphill sections just dropped my overall time. Groan. 1:30 for the 29 miles. 71st/225. Top 5 was 15 minutes faster. Yikes. 7 minutes to place me in the top 25.

The best surprise of the day was my mother in law being at the finish line. Completely unexpected, but she came over from her boyfriend’s house. She will need to remember mist racers have a need for personal space at the finish line, and holding a camera phone in their face saying “smile!” may not be the best plan. Her heart was in the right place, though, and it was nice to have a family face at the finish line.

I managed to place 6th in my AG, and 96th overall. The 40-44 AG, where I will be next year, was stacked. I would have placed 19th of 28th. I’m pretty happy with the result. My goal was to finish in the top half of my AG and overall. Both accomplished. I also wanted to finish strong. Accomplished. I wanted to have a strong bike. I’m don’t know enough to know if I had a strong bike. I wanted to have a strong run. Accomplished. It was a good day.

This is a busy handful of weeks for racing. I have a local sprint mountain bike race this weekend, with one of my NW Epic races two weeks from now. And of course the Half Ironman on June 2nd. I will need to spend some serious time on my nutrition plan. I thought I had it dialed, but most plans don’t survive the first bullet, and yesterday the guns were on full auto.

I have been training with Ben Bigglestone, a triathlon coach who runs VO2Multisport, since Dec 1, 2012. I feel very strongly in having work-life balance, as well as having mind-body balance. As a focusing goal, for 2013 I have set some pretty aggressive targets for events in which I want to participate, and level of achievement in those events.

Overall, in Q1, I spent 110 hours training/racing over 96 different activities. The total distance covered is well understated at 665.6 miles, because so much of my bike training was on a trainer and not outside, due in no small part to our weather and the start times of some of my rides. Elevation gained, also understated, was 28,839 feet, and I burned 56,562 calories. I started training at about 182 pounds. My waistline has come in several inches, but I am walking around at only 173 pounds. The difference is clear, but I expected to have dropped more weight. I want to drop another 8 pounds for my racing weight. No specific reason, but 165 sounds good.

I ran 30 times for a total distance of 182 miles, in 28 hours and 43 minutes. Total calories burned 19,803, and climbed over 8,000 feet.

I cycled 42 times for a total distance of 451 miles, but again that was way understated. Total time, however, was not, at 60 hours 53 minutes. Elevation gain was 20,800 feet (understated), and burned 36,343 calories.

According to the data I swam 20 times, but that seems low. I need to check on that. Total distance was 31 miles, over the course of 18 hours and 22 minutes.

I ran in one race, and set my personal best chip-timed half marathon by almost 8 minutes.

I rode in two mountain bike races, and have regularly finished near the back of my racing team, and well back in the sportman class of Budu Racing. I really should be racing beginner class due to my riding skills, but the races in that class are simply too short to be interesting to me. I have quite a ways to go in developing my handling skills to keep up with the front pack guys, but my engine is developing nicely.

As I entered into 2013, I made a commitment that I would read more, and I certainly have started well. Loads of good content, from the Kindle Single (a great format I finally tried this quarter), to graphic novels, to memoirs, to history, to psychology, to straight up adventures and fantasy. There’s probably something in here for everyone. This is the approximate order in which these were read.