I chatted with Dave about some new products, current ones, and what is going on with Timex.  Dave Erickson (www.daveerickson360.com) did the filming and editing.

Check out the interview form Kona HERE.

I was able to grab Cindi the day before the race right after she checked in her bike.  This is her first IM Hawaii and you can see that she is pretty excited.

Thanks again to Dave Erickson (www.daveerickson360.com) with all the help with video and editing.

Click HERE to watch the interview

Mike was so gracious to meet with me and talk about this elusive bike that first debuted in the Tour.  Though still a prototype, it what is to come.  Thanks to Dave Erickson (www.daveerickson360.com) for the editing and great media work.

Click HERE to view the interview.

Blue Lake Triathlon

Tri-Northwest Club Championships

June 14th is Jessi and my wedding anniversary.  Wow, what a great anniversary weekend spending it with some of our friends and racing a triathlon. Pretty good if you like that kind of stuff I guess.

This weekend would find us on the outskirts of Portland at the very popular Blue Lake Triathlon on Sunday along with 1000 other people racing the Oly and sprint tris. We headed over on Friday after school. It should have been the last day of school, but thanks to those wonderful 5 snow days, we would be returning to school on Monday.

I have raced this event for the past 3 years and have come to really enjoy the event. It is early enough to establish a baseline. I am not one for flat bike courses because it normally means that there will be a lot of drafting. But I have never really seen that to be a problem at Blue Lake. It does create a great opportunity to test some thresholds and compare from year to year. It has normally been a pretty fast course for me and I have had some good splits there on the bike. The run is flat too. But if you do too much work on the bike, it’s very easy to get run down, and I know I can get run down :)

The race started at 8:00am in water that was about 71 degrees and air temp that was 60 with an overcast sky.  In the elite wave, there were about 15 I think.  I got passed by a couple guys.  I made the turn for the finish and swam straight and was 2nd out of the water. I knew the guy 1st out of the water was ahead, but I did not think by more than a minute. I saw him in T1 and caught up to him. He left transition about 4 seconds ahead, so I closed almost all of my deficit I had from the swim in T1.

Then it was pretty much open road for 24 miles. Well, and a motorcycle. I locked into a steady effort that I felt I could maintain. At the last turnaround I took a split to 2nd (still the same guy) and realized I had a pretty good gap, but I thought I would need more time. With about 9 miles to go, I picked it up a bit and pressed on to the finish. I ended up with one of my fastest 40k bike splits (54:00), and highest power output for me as well. I was pretty excited about that.  The Trek TTX did not disappoint, again.

I rolled into T2 and was greeted by many spectators cheering me on. I was really impressed. There must have been 100 people right ON the dismount line. I cruised in and threw on my KSwiss K’onas and was off. I normally feel slow in the first mile and know that I just need to get settled in.  I could see the 5 that were behind me coming in and realized I have about 3:30 on 2nd, so that gave me a little breathing room. I ran to the turn and was feeling good. I felt like I got going from mile 3 to 4 when I saw my mile split I realized that the mile markers may be off because it was a little faster than I was running. But it really did not matter. At this point I had about 4 minutes on 2nd, and knew that I just needed to keep doing what I’m doing…nothing stupid. Just run my race. I came into the final quarter mile and was pretty excited knowing that I would defend the number 1 I was wearing this time.

It was a fast race. I was happy with all my splits. None of them were earth shattering…well, maybe the bike a little, but they were consistent and efforts that I “should” be able to replicate in future races. There was never a time I felt like I was racing out of my control. So that felt promising.

Another amazing trip with great people. Races are a lot of fun, but they are even better when you share them with friends, on your anniversary, and end up setting a PR. That’s a good weekend.

Hope your weekends are great.

Saturday, August 22, 2009
Apple Capital Triathlon

Wenatchee Apple Capital triathlon has been a race that I have wanted to do for a few years now, but it has never really lined up with my schedule. On a few occasions it was the same weekend as IM Canada. But this year it did not seem like there would really be any conflicts.

Jessi and I got up at 5:00am and I was moving rather slowly, typical for me on race day. We drove up to Daroga Park and got there before the sun did.  I was able to connect with some people I have not seen for a bit which is always nice. Some people from reading this blog, and some from facebook, and some that I just have known. After getting everything relatively set up, I figured I had better do something, so I hopped on the Trek, threw on my new Rudy Project Wingspan, and went for a spin.

I have to tell everyone that the new helmet is amazing. It is so dang light and you cannot even feel it when it’s on! In the race I could not believe how it felt. I did not feel any pressure on it at all, I even looked straight down, up, everything and was amazed. Anyway, I ran through the gears, I felt slow (again) and rolled back to transition.

As the start was approaching it was time to find my way to the water. I really wanted to get in a little warm up, but knew that I would probably be a little rushed…again. The swim is a 2 loop swim that is in the Columbia River, but in a bay where there was significant milfoil growth. But they cut swaths where the swim would go.  I still was not feeling overly motivated to race this morning, but when you are waist deep in cool water at 8:00am, you figure you better do something. We got the “2 minutes to start” call, so I checked my Timex iControl and made sure it was ready to roll. 5, 4, 3, 2, (I think there was a horn or something, I don’t know, my head was under water on 2). I took off and was watching all of the cut milfoil pass below me. As I was crossing the back side of the triangle, I ran into a giant floating patch of milfoil. It represented what one would find in the drain of the women’s shower at a YMCA (just guessing). I did not freak out, but I was “in it.” I actually rolled out of it and tried pushing it to the side. I was out of it and all I could think about was the rest of the swimmers coming up on it in a pack. That could be a sight. I made the first lap and felt fine. As I was making the second, I could feel pieces of the milfoil get stuck on my goggles, cap, etc. Kind of like when you swim in a pool and you feel a hair…it bugs the crap out of me. I finally made it to the end of the swim and was headed to the bike. I looked at my watch…22:45. Hmmm, must have been a tad long. It kind of evens out since Cda Oly was short, so it’s “even steven.”

I think Bruce taught me this technique…’listen to the water.”

One thing that I liked about this race was the relatively short transitions. Then on top of it, the mats were right at the entrance and exit of transition. So your transition time was the time you were actually “in” transition. Kind of cool. I think T1 was about 36 seconds. The only bummer part of this is that your bike time includes the pre “mount” and the post “dismount” running time which makes your bike time a tad  longer. Oh well, transitions will look impressive.

I was off on the bike and ready to roll. I had a motorcycle escort so that made me feel a tad safer since we were riding on a state highway. This bike course is very rolling. There are not any real steep climbs/descents, but it’s definitely up and down. But the road surface is very smooth, which is nice. I got going and was feeling okay. Not great, but my watts were telling me that I was doing what I needed to. I pushed hard to the turn where I would get an idea as to what kind of gap I had on 2nd. Upon making the turn, I then realized that wind had kicked up a bit and I would be working against a headwind the whole way back…as would everyone else.  I kept pushing on the way back knowing that the headwind would create some problems for people.

I came cruising down into T2 and was ready to run. My bike was a solid 55:45.  I flew trough T2 in 17 seconds…nice, and was off and running. The run was 2 loops as well that took you through the park. The first part looped you back to the transition area so I was able to get an idea as to what kind of gap I had.  I came through the first lap in 18:10. Wow, that’s good. If I keep it steady, I could run a 36 and change. That’d be good. So that was the new motivation, negative split the run and run a low 36.  I crossed the finish, looked at my watch, and saw 36:06. Nice! Not only did I negative split the run, I ran one of my best 10ks in a race. That feels good.

So for a race that I really did not want to do less than 12 hours ago, it all worked out. I ended up winning overall with a time of 1:54:48.  That was pretty fast for me. But since the swim was a tad long, say 2 minutes, I think that this was hands down one of my fastest races ever! I know the bike and run portions of this race are the same year after year, so those can be compared, so the swim is the only variable…as it always is.

Keep on racing.  Even when you wonder if you should, good things often come.