Phil is right. I shouldn’t let the wind bug me, so I’m off to ride shortly. I’ll be sure to curse his name while I spend hours in that headwind, though. And especially if one of those big gusts hits me and I end up in the ditch. :)

I haven’t done my long ride yet this week. Here are the options:

1. Ride Wednesday in scattered but strong thunderstorm conditions and with a tornado watch in the area issued by the National Weather Service (ok, not really an option seeing that it’s almost 9 pm here, but I figured I’d throw it in).

2. Ride Thursday with only a 10% chance of rain, but winds at 20 MPH and gusting up to 39 (!) MPH.

3. Ride Friday where the conditions right now seem good (although the meteorologists are hit or miss that far out), but having to race the following morning on legs that will inevitably be very tired.

4. Ride Sunday. 17 MPH winds and 30% chance of rain, but basically ditching my future in-laws who are visiting for the long weekend so I can get my workout in.

Gotta love that Minnesota weather! :P What would you choose?

I decided to ride on the trainer last night because we were supposed to get some thunderstorms passing through our area. It’s a good thing I did, because we probably had one of the worst rainstorms that I have ever seen yesterday. At one point, the rain was falling at a rate of nearly two inches an hour! The really heavy stuff didn’t last too long, but we did end up with 2.64 inches of rainfall yesterday according to a nearby weather station in my neighborhood. That’s more than half the average rainfall for the entire month and we got most of that in a one to two hour period! Craziness!

I’m hoping the wet stuff will stay away this afternoon and that I’ll be able to get a longish ride in tonight. I don’t know if I can handle multiple days on the trainer straight. I tried spinning yesterday while watching Breaking Away, which came recommended by a few other fellow triathletes. I must say, the first hour was a bit slow, though. I guess it was made in 1979, so my expectations probably shouldn’t have been too high. I still have another 40 minutes of the move waiting for me at home too.

Also, I hate eating oranges with seeds.

In my Waconia race report below, the results for the bike leg seem to be a good deal off. I’m fairly certain that the course yesterday was only 16.5 miles (which is very close to what my odometer read) and a bike split of 45:56 equates to a 21.6 MPH average instead of a 23.3 MPH average?! I’m not sure what equation the folks were using to calculate those number, but something is way off.

So, sorry to disappoint all of you who thought I was capable of that bike split yesterday. I was beginning to wonder who was slipping me the EPO when I wasn’t looking. As much as I’d like to think that I could ride that fast, reality and math tell me otherwise. I’m going to write to the race director and see what’s up.

Due to my utterly poor performance in yesterday’s run leg, I skipped my masters workout this morning decided to go running instead. The weather here is back to “normal” - cloudy, overcast, and pretty much just miserable. Oh, and in addition to the clouds it’s already 80 degrees and humid here at 7 am. Wonderful!

I could hear thunder in the background while I was putting on all my running clothes, but there was just a sprinkle of rain when I stepped outside. “Maybe I can do this quick and miss the rain!” I get about a half mile out and the sprinkle starts turning into a shower in a hurry. I made a quick dash to get under an overpass ramp and stood there for about five minutes avoiding getting absolutely drenched. Phew! That was close. The rain finally let up a bit and I very quickly made my way back home. So no swim workout or run workout this morning for me (unless you call that 8 minutes I did a workout). My legs are still a little bit sore from yesterday so I guess I could use a day off of running before hitting it hard.

I’ve been on the worst sleep schedule lately. I’ve been waking up around 4-5 AM everyday unable to fall back asleep. So I’ll just get up and go about my day. I get home usually pretty tired and after my evening workout and dinner, I’ll fall asleep around 8-9. Then I’ll wake up again around midnight and fart around until 2-3 AM before I’m tired enough to go bad to sleep. This has been going on for a week now. :/ I guess I’m getting my necessary hours of sleep in, but it sure would be nice to get eight hours straight.

Back to the start of the work week. I hate Mondays… :(

Background:

This was my first triathlon of the 2005 season. I didn’t really expect too much out of this race. I just wanted to shake some of the rust off that had been accumulating since the off-season. I was pretty much injured for months after doing Ironman Wisconsin last year and didn’t really start training again for this season until the beginning of April. I’ve also been plagued with a couple of running injuries which has kept me from getting as many miles in as I’d have liked, so this was a nice “lets see where we’re at” race.

Pre-Race:

I was dreading that the swim was going to get cancelled and that we were going to end up with a duathlon (the swim is my strongest discipline of the three). The forecast showed scattered thunderstorms all throughout the area this morning and the sky was pretty cloudy when I left for Waconia around 6 am. As we drove to the race site, the sky did seem to brighten up a bit though which was good. The temperature was about 75 degrees with almost 90% humidity. A bit muggy, but not too bad.

I got body marked and went to go lay out all my gear in the transition area. After setting up camp, I checked the wave sheet and find out that our age group will be leaving in the 10th of 12 waves. Crap! There’s going to be a whole heck of a lot of people that I’m probably going to have to weave through on the course. Oh well. It should be a nice mental boost and make me feel like I’m going faster than I am.

The first wave heads off at 8:30 AM with each wave 3 minutes apart. I decide not to put my wetsuit on until wave 8 leaves the beach. Since the swim is my strong point, I decide not to bother warming up for it.

Swim:

Getting to the swim start late, I ended up lining up behind the pack of folks in my age group that were already there. I suppose I could have tried to elbow up to the front, but decided not to. I was tempted as I knew I’d be swimming over some of those folks, but they were there before me and it was my own fault for not showing up sooner so I just stayed in the back.

The announcer counted down from five and sent us off. As expected, the first 150 yards were a little crowded as I made may way through the pack, but after that there was a small group of us that cleared away from the rest and I had open water from there on out. I didn’t really push the pace as I had done that in my first sprint triathlon last year and felt exhausted before I even got onto the bike. I opted to focus on sighting and swimming at a nice steady, comfortable pace. I don’t recall ever going off course too badly and as I made my way around the two buoys of the triangular swim course I wasn’t too fatigued. So far so good. Heading back towards the beach, I had to weave through some folks in the waves ahead of us. Some folks were doing side stroke and I even saw one guy doing elementary backstroke! I steered left of him to avoid a boot to the face.

Before I knew it, I made landfall. I pulled off the top of my two piece wetsuit and made my way into T1. My fiance and best friend were there on the side welcoming me back and cheering me on. I thought I had only seen one other person ahead of me when I touched the beach, but I guess there were a couple more that I didn’t see. Still, it was my fastest swim of that distance in a race so I can’t really complain. Time — 12:53 (1:28/100, 4th/43 AG, 24th/425 OA).

T1:

Relatively uneventful. I glanced down at my HRM and saw that I was in the lower 170 range. Wow! That is really high for me, but my HR always seems very high out of the water. I made it to my area and saw that one of the Velcro straps come out of its loop in my bike shoes. I had some trouble getting it back in due to my vertigo from the swim. Eventually I got it through and got my bike shoes on without falling over (which was more challenging for me than it sounds!). I unracked my bike and headed out onto the bike course. Time — 2:02.

Bike:

I remember having a good bike split on the course last year, but don’t remember the course being as rolling as it was. Right out of T1, you’re faced with a bunch of shorter uphill sections but those only last for the first half mile or so. I was able to push the pace pretty well for the first section of the race. I kept my HR in the upper 160s, but after about four miles in I was starting to wonder how well I’d be able to run if I stayed at this pace. I backed off just a tad and eventually my HR settled down into the mid to upper 150s. That was probably a tad too low for me, but I didn’t want to be completely tapped out before hitting T2.

Starting as late as our wave did, the course was just packed. I wasn’t real happy about that, but there was nothing I could do. I’m guessing I spent about 90% of my time out there riding on the left as there was a constant supply of folks to pass. Better than being passed, I guess.

About five miles in, we make a left turn and head straight into a 15 MPH headwind. I slow down substantially but kept calm, telling myself that everyone had to fight through that same wind. A little further down the road, another left turn and I find myself now dealing with a cross wind that has me leaning relatively hard into it just to keep my bike going straight. The last two miles into town, the bike course and the run course took place on the same streets!! They didn’t divide the course into halves so runners were getting passed on both sides by incoming bikers! If that wasn’t a accident waiting to happen, I don’t know what was! I can’t believe they didn’t divide the street in two - one side for each. Anyway, the stats. Time — 45:56 (23.3 MPH, 7th/43 AG, 64/425 OA).

T2

Again, nothing really special here. Rack my bike. Helmet off, running shoes and hat on and I’m off! Time — 1:29.

Run:

The run is always my Achilles heel, but it didn’t help that my actual Achilles prevented me from running as much as I’d have liked these past couple of weeks. I’d just have to make due. I pass my fiance and friend on the course. They’re still cheering. They rock! :)

The first half mile of the run follows the bike and is mostly an uphill battle. I probably started out a little too fast out of T2 and those hills were starting to seem like mountains. I make it past the first half mile happy to have that out of the way. By this point, my breathing has become pretty labored but my HR is telling me to push harder. I decide to listen to my breathing and keep pace. I was hoping that my breathing would settle down and that I’d be able to start speeding up. I told myself, “Just make it to the mile marker and we’ll pick up the pace.” Mile marker comes, but am too scared to run any harder so I keep steady. “The next mile marker, I’ll make my move.” Mile marker comes… Still too scared to run hard. “Bah, just hold this pace and you can hammer the last mile home!” Mile marker comes, and I pick up the pace but barely. The finish line approaches and I’m happy that my run is coming to and end. My inability to train really had me suffering out there. I just didn’t have anything in my legs today. Time — 32:04 (8:01 pace :(, 19th/43 AG, 154/425 OA).

Summary:

Total time — 1:34:22. 10th of 43 in my age group and 78th of 425 overall. I’m pretty happy with my swim - it was my first time under 13 minutes for half a mile. I’m pretty happy with my bike - it’s my first time averaging over 23 MPH in a race. My run was just pathetic though. I’m pretty disappointed with how that turned out. I clearly have a lot of work to do in that arena.

But it was a good day overall and I’m glad I made it out there to race. Good weather and a nice little season opener. Hopefully, most of the rust is off.

I’m back home after my race this morning. The weather was good. No rain and it wasn’t too hot (although it was a bit muggy). I have mixed feelings about how I did at the race, but I’ll go into more detail when I post my race report. I’m waiting for the results to get posted online so that I can see what my splits were for each discipline and include them in my report.

Stay tuned! :)

Things were going pretty well last night. I fell asleep fairly quickly, but woke up shortly after because I left the TV on and the sound from it must have woken me up. I clicked it off, but I think the silence started messing with me and I now had too much space in my brain to start thinking about the race this morning. I tossed around for maybe 10 minutes before I decided to just get up and move to the couch. That’s where my PVR is and sometimes I have an easier time falling asleep there watching TV for whatever reason.

It worked and I was out, but was soon disturbed by a “bad” dream. I dreamt that I was a groomsmen in my friend Larry’s wedding (which has already taken place and quite a while ago at that) and was running around at the last minute trying to figure out where various pieces of my tux was. I had the pants, shirt, and shoes on, but I couldn’t find my tie, vest, or jacket. The ceremony was about to start and I still couldn’t find it. I’m running all over the church looking for my missing pieces but I can’t find anything. The ceremony starts and I’m in a panic at this point all worked up because I’m about to ruin his wedding. It comes my turn to have to walk down the aisle and someone just hands me this purple vest to wear with my pants and shirt (the bridesmaids were all dressed in purple, so this kind of matched). But there I was sticking out like a sore thumb walking down the aisle. I could feel the stare of folks wondering who the heck is this guy and why is he wearing THAT?! The stares must have been too much and I woke up. Phew! At least that wasn’t real. I check the clock quick and it reads 3 am. Great. I’m going to have to try and get relaxed enough to fall asleep again after that?

I did manage another hour or so, but had to get up early to eat breakfast. Oh well. There is always time this afternoon for a nap.

I have everything all packed and ready to go for tomorrow’s race. My legs are still sore from Thursday’s ride, but nothing really that I can do about that now. It should still be a fun one, though. The season opener always has me a little nervous. I’m especially dreading having to run after red-lining on the bike and swim. I’d rather go slow and long than go short and hard. It just flat out hurts less.

While I was getting my bike ready for tomorrow, I went to take off my cassette on my race wheels so that I could sell it on eBay or something. I previously bought two identical cassettes before I realized how easy it was to swap them out. Well, I guess it’s good that I have two. The one cassette on my training wheel will not go on the body of my race wheel. I can get the first eight cogs on, but the ninth cog just won’t slide on. Either the grooves on the cassette are maligned or the body on the race wheel is maligned. Both cassettes work on my training wheels, so I guess I’m leaning towards it being the body at this point. I’ll have to check with the LBS to find out for sure.

I also had a brain fart while trying to get my rear wheel dialed in. I couldn’t shift to my lowest cog while making adjustments, I noticed that my cable housing was frayed on that end. So I did some last minute bike maintenance and ended up having to adjust the limit screws on the back. After pulling my hair out for probably 30 minutes and not being able to get it fixed, it finally dawned on me that the “L” screw is for the largest cog and not the smallest one. I felt pretty dumb having spent all that time trying to make adjustments to the wrong screw. Oh well… It’s fixed now.

Alas, it’s time for bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some good sleep. I really haven’t slept very well all week. I’ll should have a race report for you all tomorrow. I say “should” because there are supposed to be scattered thunderstorms tomorrow. If they end up cancelling the swim, the idea of doing a duathlon or something similar doesn’t really appeal to me at all. I’d be tempted to just call the whole thing off if there is lightning in the sky in the morning. I don’t know… Maybe I’ll just race regardless. Hopefully the weather will be good in the morning and I won’t have to think about it.

I didn’t really do anything today (well, yesterday now) besides swim after the MOAB. My legs are pretty sore, especially where they were cramping yesterday. I probably could have managed a run, but I think I was just better served by taking the rest of the day off. I’m hoping that the soreness goes away before my race tomorrow morning.

On the advice of some people on the TriNewbies forum, I stopped in at the StartLine Running Store today to look for some new shoes. My current ones are approaching their wear limit and I had the odd suspicion that I wasn’t running in the right shoe as well. From what I’ve read online, they have you believe that you pick your shoes by looking at your arches. High arches and you need a cushioning type shoe, normal arches and you get a stability shoe, and low arches and flat feet get motion control shoes. They theory behind this is that runners with high arches tend to either run neutral or slightly supinate, while folks with normal and low arches tend to pronate a little or a lot respectively.

Well, from my own observation, I have a normal arch on my right foot and a low arch on my left foot. Seemingly, that would indicate that I need a stability or motion control shoe. However, when running I seemed to be fairly neutral in my stride and if anything, favoring the outside of my foot ever so slightly which would lead me to believe that I need a cushioning shoe. Based on what I read, you could make an argument that I should be running in any of the three shoe categories. Confused and with all of the injuries that I’ve had, I decided to go seek “professional” help.

I went into the store and found Ann, the store manager who the TNO folks advised me to seek out. I told her I needed new shoes because mine were getting worn (i.e. she’s going to get a sale today from me so she didn’t need to try to sell me something new) but didn’t tell her what I had been running in before as to not bias her in one way or another. She started asking my questions about my training and my goals - good signs right off the bat. She took a look at my feet, sizing them seated and standing and taking a look at my arches. She immediately said to an employee, “I think he’s going to be a neutral.” She went back to the back room and got a couple of different pairs of shoes for me to try and and had my run on the treadmill while she observed my stride. She confirmed the fact that I’m quite neutral. She then asked if I brought an old pair of running shoes, which I happened to have in my car, to look at the wear patterns (another good sign) and watched me run in those. Everything confirmed her theory that I needed a cushioning shoe. “I just can’t see you in that shoe,” she told me referring to the shoes that I was currently running in. I explained that I had been confused by what I had read about arches and what not and that was how I picked my previous shoes. She very politely and convincingly assured me that those rules aren’t always the case.

So I’m home with a brand new pair of Mizuno Wave Rider 8 shoes. I was too sore to run in the new shoes today. It’d be nice to get a short run in them tomorrow before my race on Sunday, but I’ll run in them brand new come race day if I can’t; they are very comfortable right out of the box and don’t imagine that they’ll need any breaking in. I’m somewhat optimistic that running in the wrong shoes was at least partially to blame for some of the injuries that I’ve had. Maybe not the shin splints, but perhaps the ITB and even more probable my recent bout of achilles tendonitis. I guess time will tell if this is the case or not. But I do I wish I had sought out a knowledgeable fitter a long time ago. I feel kind of silly having trained and raced in the wrong shoe type all last year.