So while its not quite triathlon season, it is still fun to get in a race here and there so Sunday morning I ran the Mercedes Half Marathon in Birmingham, AL. Although racing a half marathon usually ends up being pretty painful, I had plenty of incentives to run. First and foremost, racing a half on Sunday morning meant I didnt have to go biking on Sunday or Saturday which is a huge bonus in the winter. Biking sucks in general but biking in the winter is just plain awful. Additionally, this race had Jim & Nick’s BBQ and AYCD free beer at the end, so what else could you ask for?

The morning started with a nice jog with fellow Huntsvillian Tim Vinson who was “just using the race as a tempo run” and “wanted to get in four before the start.” So I jogged a couple of miles with him before finalizing my clothing decision. The weather at the start was around 30F and sunny, so I went with shorts, a singlet, arm warmers, a Timex Headsweats running hat, and, yes, compression socks. As silly as they look, I am not embarrassed to admit that I actually really like running in my Sugoi R+R Compression Socks when its cold out as they really do a nice job keeping my lower legs warm.

After a few brief words by the mayor, we were off. There was quite a bit of activity the first mile with people figuring out how fast they wanted to run but I was happy to come through in 5:27. The field was still sorting itself out so I set off looking for someone with whom I could pass a few miles. I came on one guy but he was already breathing pretty heavy so I left him pretty quickly.

I came through the second mile in 5:29 feeling nice and relaxed. By this time a group of three guys had formed about 20 or 30sec ahead of me. I wanted to run with them but at the same time didnt want to expend too much energy to catch them if it would only lead to a blow up later in the race. So I tried to reel them in over the next few miles but it seemed to be a rather fruitless pursuit. I was closing the gap a bit but not nearly fast enough. I did manage to keep them in sight and keep the gap pretty constant through about six miles but then they started to pull away a bit. The course was getting a bit hillier and it seemed that the uphills were outnumbering the downhills. Of course this couldve just been fatigue setting in, but who knows. Regardless, I just tried to focus and keep a good rhythm. I really just wanted to get to mile 10, telling myself it would just be a 5k to go after that.

Finally I came through 10 in around 54:40 or so and I hopeful that I could kick it in and finish around 1:11:30. Shortly after that we headed back into downtown and I knew we were getting close. Also around this time I saw another runner who must have been falling back quite a bit because he was not one of the three I had seen for the majority of the race.

At mile 11 he had 20 sec on me but I decided I could catch him. I set off, really focusing on keeping a high tempo and running faster. Shortly after passing mile 12 I had a bit of weird sensation, as I kind of started hyperventilating. I’m thinking maybe it was due to the cold air but I’m really not sure. Luckily though there was less than a mile to go so I just had to put if out of my head and keep running.

Finally, at about 12.5, I caught and passed him right before a right turn which proceeded a ~0.5 mile uphill stretch to the 13 mile mark after which we’d have a sharp left, right, and finally the finish line. So coming out of the turn he came back past me and I tried to go but started tying up. I really tried to quicken my stride but the slight uphill just sapped my speed and the legs really werent going to move any faster. I missed my 13 mile split but really just wanted to get to the finish.

I finally stumbled across the line in 1:12:12, about 6 sec behind the kid who out-kicked me. As for the group of three I was running behind earlier in the race, it appears that one of them ran the marathon and the other two ran 1:11:12 and 1:11:15. Too bad I couldnt have stayed with them. Finally, Tim Vinson, the guy I warmed up with, ended up 13th overall and 1st Masters in 1:17:32. All in the middle of a 21 mile day and a 100 mile week. Not too shabby!

All in all, I’m pretty pleased. Although I would’ve loved to out-kick that kid and/or go under 1:12, I cant complain about being 10sec off a PR as other than two tempo runs, I’ve only done easy running up to this point this year.

Finally, full results are here and my splits are as follows. Incidentally, I think the fast third mile was primarily downhill and not fully compensated for until the last mile. 5:27, 5:29, 4:19(!), 5:31, 5:32, 5:34, 5:41, 5:40, 5:31, 5:32, 5:24, 5:28, 6:58 (1.1)

Thanks for reading!

Andrew

Snow shoe race… really? A quick perusal of the blog shows a few random posts and then… a snow shoe race. So how about a post about triathlon, eh? Well, it is the off-season, so we’ll have to settle for training. But actual triathlon training, the swimming-biking-running variety, rather than snow shoe running, cross country skiing, or indoor workout madness.

Admittedly, the weather near me has been pretty awful for this sort of thing but that’s why I jumped at the opportunity to get out of town. Not only out of town but off the continent! Last Sunday I boarded a plane to Atlanta where I then caught a flight to Honolulu before my third jump to Kahului on the island of Maui. The final destination was a condo near the historic town of Paia where the temperature during the day has hovered somewhere around 80F and clouds are a rarity. Not only is the weather here optimized for training but so is the company which includes the likes of Simon Whitfield, Sam McGlone, and other members of the Canadian National Team.

The first couple of days weren’t too bad… plenty of workouts but nothing too out of control.  On Wednesday however, we did our first hard ride of the camp… 2.5h with about 1h10min total of Zn3/Zn4/Zn5 climbing. We started at sea level and ended up somewhere around 3500ft although we still didn’t quite make it to the top. The descent was tons of fun… lots of exciting turns and breathtaking views.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning we headed over to the north sore for a little open water swim workout. Unfortunately we picked the windiest day since I’ve been here so we got beat up quite a bit in the choppy surf. Although the workout was a bit rough, the water was amazing as it was the perfect temperature and crystal clear. The highlight though was the body surfing after the workout!

I’m too tired to post about the adventures today but we still have a couple of hard rides and runs on tap (and of course every pool session is fast with the ITU crew) so I’m just hoping I can it through to next Monday. While this camp is certainly giving my fitness a great kick start to my year, the best part about it is just the opportunity to train with so many elite athletes and understand what it takes. Additionally, I’ll probably remember the easy runs over the dirt roads in the cane fields with Simon and Kyle as much as the super hard, heart attack inducing mountain climbs and all-out 100s in the pool.

Until next time, stay warm!

After my race in Clearwater and subsequent race report, I’ve received a lot of comments congratulating me on my great time even if I was a bit disappointed with my race. I really appreciate the support and positive spin on the outcome. I’m a (generally) optimistic person so I too like to look at the bright side of situations. However, I also like to be realistic in performance evaluations and sometimes the result of the evaluation is independent of the absolute time.

More often than not, finishing time can be used as a metric of success in a triathlon. Whether it is time (running), length (long jump), or height (pole vault), many individual sports provide quantitative results at the end of competitions and I believe this is one of the reasons triathlons and running races are so popular. Because each individual is given a quantified measure of her performance independent of all other competitors, she can set a goal and achieve it. She would consider this a successful performance regardless of what anyone else does.

This is a direct dichotomy, however, to team sports in which success is binary, a team either wins or loses. “Keeping it close” might help make teammates feel better about themselves but ultimately, in the words of Herm Edwards, “We play to WIN the GAME!” A loss is a loss and a win is a win.

Similarly, my goal in Clearwater was not based on a time independent of other competitors but on a place and was therefore inherently relative to other competitors. In that respect, then, the race was not successful, as I didn’t meet my goal. Absolute time wasn’t really an issue. Rather relative time, the minute lost in the water, was the main culprit for the lack of success. In this race it was imperative for me to be out of the water and on to the bike with the group. Admittedly the margin for error was (relatively) small but that is part of the risk associated with racing competitively. As my graduate school adviser, Rob Kelly, used to say, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” I knew going into the race that I would have to have a good swim to give myself a chance for a good finish, so when I didn’t, I was disappointed and am still not pleased with the outcome of the race.

With all that having been said, this does not mean I never strive to achieve a time goal. For example, one day I plan on running a marathon and when I do so I’ll likely want to do a “big city” marathon and have a time goal in mind. If I meet that time, I’ll be pleased, regardless of how many people beat me. Additionally, it is great when someone determines a time goal for a triathlon, does a long training block, and meets or exceeds it.

While I’m focusing on racing triathlons professionally, however, the metric upon which success is determined is a bit different and by “falling back” on a fast time I would just be cheating myself.

For more, please visit http://ajhodges.blogspot.com

Summary:

The Good: The time… “PR” of 3:53:34.

The Bad: The place. 46th, even out of 80 pros at the World Championships, is just disappointing.

The Ugly: The swim, more specifically the first 1k. I’m not sure when it actually happened (and this is part of the problem) but whenever I lost touch of the group, my race was effectively over.

Full Report: Saturday morning began with… a lot of waiting. The race officials had decided on Friday to move the swim from the Gulf of Mexico to the intercoastal waterway on the other side of the peninsula due to moderately choppy water conditions. This only moved the race start a few blocks but the result was that it was now only about ¼ of a mile from the condo in which Bruce G, Chris T, and I were staying. So after eating breakfast I had plenty of time to sit around and wait before strolling over to transition.

Once there, everything went more or less according to plan. Gels on bike, tires pumped, shoes on pedals, yada, yada, yada. After finishing my prep, I struggled into my wetsuit and jumped feet first into the shallow water. I had time for a few minutes of warm up so I tried get loosened up as much as possible before the start. Soon enough, though, it was time for the National Anthem and the start of the women’s race. Thats right, another last minute change was made to send the women off 8 minutes ahead of the men.

In the words of Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part. As it turns out, though, 8 minutes turned into 7:30 of waiting, then 20 sec of dogpaddling, then 10 sec of aggressive dogpaddling, then the start. With no well-defined start line or even an official there to hold us back, people started getting antsy a little early and started creeping forward. Before you knew it, people were screaming at others to get back while still moving forward. Finally though the horn sounded and the madness ensued.

Initially I was hanging in, swimming as fast as I could, getting bumped around, and trying not to swallow too much water. A couple of times I had to slightly adjust course to head towards what I perceived to be a group but after 4 or 5 minutes, I felt like things were starting to string out and found some feet. A bit later, all of the sudden I’m feeling the bottom and am forced to jump up and do some dolphin dives as the water was only a couple of feet deep (thanks for moving the swim, WTC!). I caught back up to the person in front of me and made it out to the first turn thinking I was still part of a pretty large group.

After making the turn, however, I realized this was not the case. There were two people in front of me, but no one in front of them. I passed them, made the second turn to come back into shore, and then saw no one ahead of me (thus, The Ugly). A little over half way through the swim and there was already a significant gap between me and a number of the other competitors. The only thing that I wasn’t sure about was exactly how many people were “up the water.”

I swam hard alone for the rest of the swim and entered transition to see a plethora of guys grabbing their bikes and heading out. Unfortunately though by the time I got around to my bike all of them had left and the population of pro bikes remaining on the racks was severely depleted. While it was certainly disappointing, there was nothing I could do about it so I set out on my bike ready to ride hard.

The bike was uneventful. Outside of passing a few pro women, I rode by myself the whole way and finished in 2:10:35.

The run was similarly lonely as I made my way through the pro women and then AGers on the second lap. It was hard, I was hurting, but I wasn’t racing, I was time trialing. And this is supposed to be a race report.  Time: 1:15:17.

In the end, that is really what it comes down to. In order to give myslef a chance to race on a regular basis I need step up the swimming another notch to be consistently right there with the top group of guys. Otherwise I might as well just stay at home and do time trials once an month and pat myself on the back after having a few good splits.

…in Augusta, at the 70.3? I’m not sure either but I’ll try to shed some light on it…

Augusta, GA- At 7:28 without the luxury of a warm up we, the male pros, were lined up on a floating dock in preparation for our 7:30 start time. The horn sounded and we all dove head first into the water, even Mike C.

I’ve been working on my start so I was encouraged to seemingly still be in the thick of things after the first minute. So while in the thick of things, I got knocked pretty good in the side of my head a couple of minutes later. Luckily the punch landed squarely on the side of my skull, keeping my goggles perfectly intact. Finally, about halfway through I moved around Victor Z and settled into what appeared to be a reasonable sized group. I wasn’t sure how far ahead the leaders were but I wasn’t going to be able to pass this group so my goal was to hang in for the rest of the swim.

Coming out of the water, I noticed some seriously fast swimmers in transition and was pleased to be finishing the swim in the same ballpark as them. Before I could get out onto the bike, however, I had to get my AquaSphere speedsuit off. As Tim Hola mentioned, this thing is fast. I’ve raced in it a couple of times and had no trouble getting it unzipped but for some reason this time it just wouldn’t come undone. Luckily, however, teammate James Cotter was running up the chute with me and gave me a hand. That was HUGE… thanks James! With the speedsuit off, I was in and out of transition and ready for the bike.

As I started the ride, I was ready for people to catch me (thanks to the good swim) and was hopeful I’d be able to stay with them because 56 miles by yourself just isn’t too much fun. However, as people and small groups started catching me, I felt like I was in a Pinto while everyone else was driving a Porsche. Eventually I just had to settle down and ride my race. I always remember that my HSCC coach used to harp on the fact that that you couldn’t control what other people are doing. So I tried to focus on my own race and ride hard. This, however, was really frustrating because even though the speed wasnt there, my PowerTap was telling me I was having a very solid ride. Unfortunately though, excuses are worth about as much as the change in my pocket and awards are not given out based on power numbers (good thing, too!).

So after exiting the swim in 11th, I found myself 17th on my way into T2. Sarah, meanwhile, was wondering what the hell took me so long.

Finally I was out on the run. No equipment to worry about here… just put on the shoes and GO! After the disappointing ride, I was hoping to at least salvage a decent finish with a fast run. The first mile came and went in just under 5:50 and after that I started cranking, holding right in the 5:40-5:45 range. I felt solid the whole time, even when it started heating up, and had enough left to catch a couple of guys in the last mile and finish 13th overall.  Full results can be found here.

So yeah, good swim, good run, need to find WTF happened with the bike. But enough about the race. What is more important is the food on the way home! A couple of weeks ago, Hola, after dominating the LC National Championship, had a burger on the way home for me. While I appreciate the gesture, if you’re going to get a burger, get a burger. So rather than settling for this at McDonalds:

we went for the Flip Burger Boutique in Atlanta. I had bacon cheeseburger:

while Sarah had the crab cake:

Oh, and we split an order of vodka battered onion rings and an order of butternut squash fingers:

Finally though, to top it all off…

A Nutella + burnt marshmallow liquid nitrogen milkshake. Yummy!