Carolina Half

S - 11,400 yards
B - 111.6 miles
R - 36.5 miles
Time - 13.3 hours

The real story of the week though, was Setup Events inaugural Carolina Half, the first half-distance triathlon to be held "in" Charlotte.  It seems like everyone was fairly excited about this prospect but this excitement was tempered by the realization that the course was going to be pretty difficult.  As the week went on it became more and more of a certainty that the race was going to be wetsuit legal, the air was going to be a bit chilly and breezy early, and the run was going to get warm and sunny.

Having ridden 90% of the course several weeks ago, I had my own thoughts about what the bike would be like.  Most people seemed to think the bike was going to be very difficult, but I was not sure I agreed.  Yes, there were lots of turns.  Yes, it was fairly hilly.  Yes, it was quite exposed so the wind would be a factor.  I still thought it would roll pretty fast, however.  I was thinking the fastest bike split would be under 2:20; I hoped that it would be my own split but I was ok with whatever came my way on the bike ;)

The run was going to be the difference maker.  This was definitely the most difficult run course of any half-distance triathlon I've done and of the current races in the area.  I was excited for the prospect of a hard run as I knew it would be to my advantage with the way I've been running lately.  Not to toot my own horn, but when you put in the work and you inspire glances like this from Matt Wisthoff himself, you know you're running well (although it didn't matter since I didn't catch him, womp womp!)

Race day approached and given that I was bib #1 I was excited to "live up to it." Derek Kidwell signed up race-week so he became the main competition as prior to that I was fairly sure that nobody on the participant list would be too much of a challenge.  If Kenneth had been healthy most of the year I have no doubt his race would've gone very differently...given that he hasn't raced at all this year a 4:33 on that course is pretty dang impressive!

Despite waking up with more than enough time, the logistics of the point to point race (two different transition locations) meant that the morning was rushed.  Jenny and I had very little time to spare but they ended up starting the race a little late to accommodate the people on the last shuttle.  I was really excited that they decided to make the race a beach start as I absolutely love beach starts.  Running into the water is an art.  there is no graceful way to do it so the timing is incredibly important... Unfortunately not many others shared my enthusiasm...and looked at me funny when I practiced it before the start of the race.

Swim 1.2mi - 27:17 (5th)

The swim started off and it quickly became obvious that the front of the swim would be Derek and Jenny.  John Shilt was also in the mix for the first 200 meters or so but he fell back pretty quickly.  Jenny on the left, Derek in the middle and me on the right.  Jenny relatively quickly got to the front and before the first turn buoy Derek moved over and got on her feet.  This, plus the marked increase in his pace, meant that a gap formed.  Unfortunately I could not close down this gap.  I was a little mad at myself this entire swim.  Whether it was a combination of wearing a wetsuit, which I don't really like, tired arms, or just a big dose of being a wuss I let the swim happen in front of me.  At nearly every race this year that he and I have done together I've had little to no trouble sitting on Derek's feet.  But (I can only assume) since he chose to hop onto Jenny's feet it meant they both broke me a little bit early on in the race.

After the first turn, sighting was a little difficult.  Having the sight buoys be the same color as the turn buoys made finding the right buoy a little frustrating.  I meandered along by myself, slowly losing ground to the pair in front of me. As I got closer to the second buoy I realized that Jenny had popped Derek and there was clear separation between the two.  This made me feel a little better and as I rounded the second and final turn I told myself that I had plenty of time to make up the gap.  The way back in towards the run-out was a little weird as I felt as though I was getting pushed.  I cannot remember which direction but I felt like I was "fighting" a bit the last several hundred meters.  I exited the swim and removed the top half of my wetsuit before crossing the timing mat.

T1 - 2:49 (5th)

I stopped before getting to the grass to remove the rest of my wetsuit as the run to T1 was very long and slightly uphill.  I was not particularly smooth about it so that plus the laborious run meant that as I got to my bike I was fairly out of breath.  Everything was smooth there, however, and I hopped on my bike for 56mi of fun.

Bike 56mi - 2:21:46 (1st)

I headed out on the bike knowing that the race was in front of me.  I had a goal watt range for this race similar to Williamsburg but from the start two things were immediately apparent:

1) My legs had little to no desire to meet those watt goals
2) My handlebars were crooked and pointed to the left while the wheel was straight. Very annoying. Didn't affect anything, but very, very annoying.

That being said, I couldn't really do anything about it so continued on my merry way.  I caught Jenny after about 10 minutes and remarked to her on how it was going to be a pretty lonely day out on the course.  I am not sure she heard me as she did not laugh at my obviously hilarious comment nor did she expound on my supreme motivational skills so I continued onwards.  After a little while longer I looked back and saw someone closer than I expected.  Or rather, in my head I thought Jenny was catching back up to me.  I knew I didn't feel great but that very much surprised me.  I looked back again after a little more time and this person had closed down the gap completely! They looked a little tall to be Jenny so when Kenneth came rolling past me at about 20-25' into the ride saying "ICE, ICE BABY" I laughed a little at myself.  Kenneth and I went back and forth for a little while and we caught sight of Derek about 1/3 of the way into the ride.  I kept holding decent watts and taking down liquid fuel and after about an hour caught up to Derek.  It was almost at the exact moment where we made a right hand turn and saw, among others, these three hooligans cheering incredibly loudly and obnoxiously while the police officers looked on helplessly:

This was a nice little boost mentally but unfortunately did nothing to help out my tired legs.

Given the way I felt I was content to just sit on Derek's pace as Kenneth had floated backwards a little bit after about 1-1.25hrs into the bike.  I figured that nobody else behind us was going to close down the gap so I hoped to either:

a) feel better and be able to raise my watts
b) roll into T2 not being overly tired

Well the bike continued onwards and "A" never came to pass so I banked on "B" and continued semi-contentedly. Derek rolled the hills pretty hard which raised my effort level a lot but then sometimes on flats and downhills I had to brake and/or coast to stay a legal distance behind him. I think his knowledge of some of the course and its corners definitely helped a lot and given that I had ridden these roads many a time over the past couple of years it helped me also.

At one point in the last 5-7 miles I got close enough to Derek that I felt as though I needed to pass him just so I wouldn't be susceptible to a drafting penalty (even though I saw a motorcycle one time for only about 5s...) and I knew Derek would stay behind me the rest of the way and we consequently rolled into T2 one right after the other.



T2 - :52 (8th)

I did not rush my T2 and it showed, as Derek made it out onto the run course about 100 yards ahead of me.

Run 13.1 - 1:23:33 (2nd)

As I ran out of T2 I realized that I did not have my gel flask with me so I turned around and rooted around in my transition bag to find it.  I was luckily racked all the way against the fence so I could just reach over and grab it versus having to run all the way back into transition (and likely causing a timing chip malfunction for the race results!).  But I knew I needed that flask and it was worth the time penalty to get it, no question.

Derek had a 15-20s lead on me but as I started running the turnover felt relaxed and easy and breathing was mostly in control so I just set out comfortably and figured I'd wait and see what would happen.  The first mile is rolling with some climbing and descending around the park before coming back up to transition and heading out on the out and back section of the course.  It did not take all that long to catch up to Derek who must've gone through the first mile in 6:10ish and just before getting on Bailey School Rd I was up on his shoulder and could tell his breathing was fairly labored.  I felt relaxed and had no need to put on the hard pass so I just continued on and slowly went by and subsequently heard him matching my pace.  On the downhill leading into the cheering section I believe I left him behind a little bit and carried onwards feeling confident the race was now mine.

My first three miles were pretty consistent, with a 6:0X for each one through the rollers but miles 3-4 brought with it the climb up Patrick Johnston Rd (or whatever it's called) and my pace consequently slowed.  This was a tough uphill and it forced very short but powerful strides and my adductors felt a little queasy as I neared the top.  Luckily this passed quickly but the next 1.5+ miles were all a net uphill to get back to Davidson-Concord road.

I crossed over this and headed down into the parking lot where so many rides and runs began and ended in 2009 and 2010.  I cannot possibly tell you how happy I always was to see that sign into that parking lot at the end of SO many workouts back when I was first learning what it meant to break down.  Luckily we had a brief respite from all the climbing with the short but sharp downhill from the street, around the lot and onto the soccer fields leading into the trails.  The mile or so of groomed trail with crushed gravel leading into the Davidson XC trails was pretty hilly and made the legs hurt a little bit.  Once into the trails proper, however, the shade and twists and turns help keep the boredom at bay and allowed you to kind of focus on the rhythm of the race.  I was trying to remember earlier today what exactly I was thinking about during the run but I honestly can't remember much of the first 10 miles.  I'm not sure whether I "zone out" or just get so "in the zone" that my mind kind of goes blank.  You focus on the little things, like picking the best line, cutting the tangents, not making any weird movements, taking nutrition in, spitting when appropriate, worrying about your hair, etc.  It's partly what I love about long distance racing...the mental blank slate you have and hopefully embrace to disassociate from the pain and suffering you are putting yourself through...

Once I reached the turnaround point at mile 7 I looked at the time so I could get some time-checks on any chasers.  It was almost 2 minutes before I saw Derek and 7 or so before I saw Kenneth so I knew that, barring catastrophe, I was going to win the race (since doubling both meant I was actually 3.5-4 minutes ahead of Derek and 13-15 ahead of Kenneth). I got back out to the parking lot and had what was, other than the cheering section of hooligans, the most memorable part of my race.

There was an aid station on the left and as I grabbed and drank a cup of water I heard a guy say, quite clearly: "Wow, check out that guy's hair!?"  I am not sure whether he said that with respect in his voice and honor in his heart or with shock in both.  I'm going to assume the former and walk away with that one.  I did not know the person and can only assume that he follows Haycraft's Hair on twitter...

At this point there were more people coming the other way and it was great motivation to know so many of them and be able to genuinely say (and mean) "good job," "nice work," "keep it up" to all of them.  Or at least, as many as I could muster the breath for.  Things were normal until I got off the greenway and got back into that neighborhood where the course served up another long, tough climb for the racers.  My adductors felt this much more strongly than before so I slowed my pace so as not to do anything too catastrophic to them.  This was a decent length climb and the downhill afterwards was very welcome, as I knew the only things that stood in my path were a climb up to Bailey School Rd and a gorilla, banana, and clown-in-a-speedo before the finish line.

I finished the last bit of climbing before getting to the flat section and rolling across the finish line as the winner of the first year race (setting a course record by default, woop woop!).  Schwing!

OA - 4:16:20 (1st)

I was very pleased with this result, as it confirmed several things:

1) My hair and a visor do not go together
2) I am in good running shape
3) Even when tired, a good performance can happen if you don't give up on yourself
4) I have basically won the series (I think), so that means a sweet pay-day
5) It was great to race with Derek and Kenneth (on that note...1st, 1st and 3rd aren't bad for 3 racers from ICE Racing, eh?)
6) Podiums need more humor, on that note:

Another Week

S - 20,400 yards
B - 204.3 miles
R - 51.4 miles

Time - 22.83 hours

Well, that's it.  I've paid my money.  I have not officially been accepted into Ironman Cozumel 2013 but I have done my due process and am just waiting to here back from Pro Membership at Ironman.  That'll mean my first attempt at the distance since the summer of 2010.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I doubt I'll be quite as excited about it when I am training through the middle of November and pretty much everyone else will be done for the year (although it seems like most people have pretty much checked out at this point already anyway) and I'll still be going through December 1st.

This hasn't really influenced my training loads just yet but I've notched several great long runs under my belt recently and this week was no exception.  I had a two-hour aerobic run on Friday that went quite well (although I admittedly got pretty bored towards the end) that was a delicious slice of meat to my weekly running sandwich.



Carolina Half is next weekend and I am definitely excited about it, not necessarily because I plan on going very fast but more because it'll be somewhat of a home course and there will be lots of people I know out racing and (hopefully) spectating.

Also of note is the fact that I currently am at the top of the NCTS Season Standings.  Matt has just completed his 5th race, moving him into second place and only 180 points behind.  Luckily for me, Carolina Half is weighted fairly heavily so a mediocre race will likely still replace one of my less than stellar points races (OTM, Lake Hickory).  Hopefully this means I will win the NCTS for the first (and only) time! Only in the sense that I will not have it as a seasonal goal anymore.

Not failing

S - 10,500 yards
B - 218.3 miles
R - 53.6 miles

Time - 21.00 hours

There are certain things that stand out to me about this week:

• Waking up to swim on a Monday morning is quite possibly the most difficult thing to do after a "weekend"
• As a sidenote, I'm officially announcing that Brian Stover has killed "the weekend" for me. Weekends used to be a glorious time of not working, of resting, of going out at night, of watching movies, of whatever-you-wanna-do-awesomeness. 
• Nowadays it means workouts from 9am to 5pm on Saturday (including travel, prep, eating, etc and that's with a late start) and 9am to 2pm on Sunday (and the rest of the day is basically a wash as all energy available is used to sit on the couch)

• 3000 yards of IM is a lot of IM in one swim practice
• I think this flat-lined my shoulders for the rest of the week
• What doesn't kill you makes you...stronger?

• 4 bike workouts and 2 run workouts a week is quite a lot (I mean ACTUAL workouts, not "sessions" as some people like to call them)
• 18+ miles of running in one day is the most I've done since 2010
• 25 minutes of tempo, on paper, isn't too bad
• In real life, in the middle of a 2 hour run, it's mentally crushing
• For the first time in what feels like...ever? I managed to complete each bike workout for the week as written.
• This may sound inconsequential, but it is surprisingly difficult especially when Sunday's workout is: 4hr - 45aer + 5x(12 threshold + 15 tempo + 3ez) + 45aer
• I saw that when the schedule was delivered and sent Brian an email that just said, quite simply: "I hate you"
• His reply was: "You hate me for making your competition hate you?"
• I had nothing for that one

As another sidenote, I kinda miss Hootie and the Blowfish.

White Lake International and Ramblin' Prose

8/26 - 9/1
S - 4500 yards
B - 116.4 miles
R - 52.5 miles
Time - 13.39 hours

9/2 - 9/8
S - 9,300 yards
B - 165.1 miles
R - 24.3 miles
Time - 14.00 hours

Things of note past couple of weeks:

1) On September 1st I flew down to New Orleans to visit with my family for the day (before one brother goes to Edinburgh, Scotland for grad school and the other goes back up to NYC for senior year at NYU) and purchase my dad's 2009 VW Jetta TDI.  The following day I drove back up from New Orleans to Charlotte (11hr drive).  Not great for training, but hopefully great from a life perspective.

2) To break up the drive, I decided to text my friend Jeremy (college bff and Atlanta attorney) to see what he was up to on Labor Day.  He and his gf Kayla were playing frisbee so I invited myself to play with them.  Knowing that my body can't handle hard frisbee playing anymore I intentionally did not try very hard but in spite of this I tweaked my left lower hamstring pretty good.  So good, in fact, that I bailed on my Tuesday AM threshold interval run 1.5 minutes into it.  I'm not normally a particularly "careful" guy when it comes to little stuff so this was big for me.  I tend to grip it and rip it, so to speak.  Luckily it healed relatively quickly and I was confident it would knowing that it was a simple anomaly injury.

On Friday afternoon after a surprisingly busy day at work Jenny, Mr Behme and myself drove to the bustling Bladen County metropolis of White Lake, NC to participate in the White Lake International Triathlon. This was another "bonus point" event in the series and I knew doing well would essentially cement my lead for the rest of the year.  Leading into the end of the week I figured I might have a fairly smooth go of it as some notable names were missing from the start list.  Much to my dismay, Mr Matt Wisthoff signed up late in the week and would be bringing his A game, surely with the goal of exacting revenge for Stumpy Creek.

1.5k - 45k - 10k

Swim - 21:34 (3rd among guys, but 4th OA; thanks Jenny as usual)

I lined up on the left next to a very young guy and with Jenny on my right.  Matt was over to the far left.  As is tradition, the start horn fired and everyone took off at an extremely ambitious pace.  The award for most ambitious goes to the kid next to me, who took off at sub 1:20/100m pace but ended up swimming a 24:24 (whereas the people he started with were 21:34 or better...).  Anyway, the three of us were somewhat sandwiched together and I was the meat.  The kid next to me kept veering over to the right (towards me) and would come into contact with my left side.  This happened, once, twice, then finally he came so far over that I basically ran over him.  I'm a pretty straight swimmer and I was a little annoyed anyway so I didn't try too hard to get out of his way and I was also trying to not impede Jenny's swim.  He backed off to the left and then lost almost a body length on me in 3 strokes.  Keep in mind that we were not even 300m into the swim at this point...

Eventually I lost contact with Jenny and I took a glance off to the right to see someone taking a very inner line and a bit ahead of me so I hoped to get on their feet at the first turn but as the first buoy came and went the mystery man (well, I assumed it was a man) still had a 15-20 yard gap on me that I couldn't close down.  The route to the second buoy was uneventful but with the sun just above the tree line on the left side sighting was fairly difficult.  At the last turn there was some serious confusion as the sight buoy line appeared to be way off to the left of the straightest route which after a decent amount of sighting every stroke I managed to find.  At one point I saw a left arm taking a stroke off the left side of my feet which surprised me as I hadn't felt a single touch on my feet the whole swim (a very courteous usage of the draft I might add!).  As I made my way to the exit dock I saw someone climbing the ladder and after some small amount of time I got to make the climb myself. We had a 40-50 yard run along the dock and on some grass before crossing the timing mat and during that time I lost the guy that had been swimming with me.

T1 - 1:07 (9th)

I had a clean T1, running past Dave Williams as he was getting his bike off the rack.

Bike - 1:04:05 (1st)

I got on the bike with Dave in close sight and Jenny not too far up ahead.  I knew the first part would be flat and fast so put my head into the tuck.engaged position and worked on putting out some watts.  Within the first 10 minutes I had passed Jenny and Dave and moved into second position.  Unfortunately Matt was not in visible sight so I knew he was a good ways ahead as the roads run fairly straight and true in White Lake.  The first 10 miles went by quickly and the sweeping right hand turn spit us out onto a road of slightly lesser quality.  Luckily, however, the vehicular traffic was much lighter so I'll call that one a fair trade.  Time went on, the roads were mostly flat with some slight rollers and a slight left crosswind.

The bike, honestly, was pretty uneventful.  Not much to say. It was boring and fast.  Uninteresting.  Not too hot. Slight wind (tailwind back half). I rolled back into the trailer-town that is on the final 2 miles of the course and two bikers coming the other way said I had a minute to make up on the "guy in front of me." I listened but also mostly disregarded this info as it is very important to not trust anyone you don't know with anything involving your race.  I rolled into T2 quickly, excited at the prospect of a fast run.



T2 - :50 (5th)

I had a pretty quick T2 but could have been a bit cleaner with my shoe installation. Oh the horror.

Run - 34:57 (1st)

I have managed to get several great long runs under my belt over the past month so I was quite excited to see what I could do for a flat 10k.  No excuses, no problems.  Heading out of transition and on to the main road I caught my first glimpse of Matt since the start of the race.  He looked to be a decent ways ahead but just the fact that he was finally in sight was a huge boost to my energy levels.  One must be extremely careful, however, in situations like that as the mind wants, nay NEEDS, to try and close that gap down immediately.  I disobeyed my inclination to sprint and set out at a manageable pace to try and let my legs and shoulders loosen up a bit.

I could tell Matt was running well as his turnover was pretty high on the first mile of the course. At roughly mile .5 I saw local runner/triathlete D. Crockford helping a lady with her bike on the side of the road and she told me I had a 1 minute gap to Matt (thanks Danielle, by the way).  I trusted her number because it seemed realistic based on how far ahead Matt appeared to be.  I carried on through mile 1 and hit the gas station to make the right hand turn onto the bigger highway.  Matt was still maintaining the same lead so we both carried on our separate little races in our own heads.  The turnaround point approached quickly (thankfully) and he'd get his first glimpse of how far back I was.  The road up to the u-turn was a slight incline and into the wind so once he turned it looked like he was fuh-lying towards me (which is always somewhat demoralizing; on a sidenote, every single person coming the other way ALWAYS looks like they are running faster than me.  Do other people think this as well? Do I look like I am running fast? I don't even know).  I made the turn and realized why he looked like he was going so fast: because he WAS going so fast! Downhill tailwind running is awesuhm!

Mile 4 came and went and I could tell I had made up some ground.  The gap was noticeably smaller and I was energized by this.  I was making a lot of funny noises as I continued to try and push the pace.  The gap to third place was massive and I figured with the paces we were running it was only going to grow.  Past mile 5 and the gas station and I knew Matt had taken a quick glance over his shoulder to see me a bit closer than I had been and that could only have spurred him onwards towards the finish.  With roughly a half mile to go Danielle gave me another split: 20 seconds to Matt.  I knew that in that short of a distance 20s was almost impossible to make up on someone running well but I continued to try and push all the way to the finish line, crossing just 20ish seconds after Matt did.

2nd Overall in 2:02:31

One of questions I was asked after the race by someone that recognized me from seeing me on the run was "I bet you're unhappy with 2nd aren't you?" Not implying anything just assuming that because I didn't win I would be upset.  I am definitely not upset with that race.  I biked and ran very well and lost to a very, very good race by Matt.  Both of us went faster than DVW's winning time last year.  I ran sub 35 minutes for a 10k for the first time.  That is HUGE. I've run sub 36 before but sub 35 is quite a different performance marker.  It was great to have had good runs leading up to the race in training and to see that reflected by a good performance on race day.  3rd place was almost 9 minutes back.  It was a two-man race and Matt totally got revenge for Stumpy.

Why so serious?

Ahh, that's more like it

Motivation

Before I go into this post, I just want it to be known that I'm not pulling a Nick Frank and specifically questioning motivations in a negative, "I don't like this anymore" kind of way.  I got a first-row seat last weekend to get a chance to see WHY people want to train and ask myself that same question.

At it's most simple I suppose I work out because it is a phenomenal time-filler.  The thought of having 20-30 hours each week of additional "free time" actually scares the crap out of me.  I have no idea what I'd do.  I'd probably have to work on all those "responsibilities" that people seem to harp on and that heretofore I haven't had any problems with.  So that part is scary.  Idle hands are the devil's something or other and I don't wanna be the devil's something or other.  

I think describing "why I train" it is important to dive backwards a little bit.  I've always been an athlete but I really wanted to be good at ball sports when I was growing up; I wanted to be a good outfielder and I wanted to be a good sweeper.  That was what I WANTED.  Now what I actually got was bad eyesight and mediocre touch skills.  Womp womp.  I had a great arm, but no accuracy.  I had speed, but relatively little coordination.  I had eyes, but they needed strong contacts.  I had feet, but not much ability to tell them apart.  So I was decent at both sports (actually in college I was somehow a much better soccer player participating in intramural sports than I ever was when playing at the club/HS level).  As life moved on I discovered golf and realized that you didn't just need to have talent to be good at something, you needed to also put in the hard work.  

Ball sports are "talent sports."  It is pre-determined that you need to have been gifted with some serious athletic abilities to truly excel.  You can train all you want but that will only take you so far in the baseball/football/soccer/basketball (we're talking mainstream sports here) world.  Golf, on the other hand (and maybe is not the best example because it requires talent and the means to play, which can be very expensive), is more of a "hard work" sport.  Vijay Singh is probably the most famous example of extreme dedication to the craft.  He used to spend hours on the range every day, working on some little thing each time. It made him great.  

When I first discovered triathlon I sort of "sensed" the same thing.  There is very little talent involved in 99% of triathlon (the 1% is the WTS level racing).  What makes you better at SBR is a heckuva lot of SBR'ing.  Hard work.  The DESIRE to improve becomes easy to "make good on" because to improve you simply have to work at it.  There are no short cuts, no magical workouts, no training aids...absolutely nothing...that makes you better faster.  It's just not out there.  Never let a coach tell you anything different.  Never let a salesperson sell you something like it.  Never let a friend tell you about their secret methods.  Because they do not exist.  

"Once a Runner" is a relatively famous book in the circles of...running... and it does a really good job of discussing (through narrative) the "feelings" associated with training.  For Quenton Cassidy, an elite miler, one doesn't just train to train.  It is about the feelings it inspires in you, the camaraderie among training partners/teammates, and the desire to improve.  The "constant quest for betterment" is what made him and others like him wake up every morning and lace up their shoes.  The ever present desire to be better than you were the day before.  Where you can finish a workout and say "I am better than I was yesterday." Those are all things that motivate.  I feel similarly; I go through lulls and peaks but for the most part, I can look back and say that I am BETTER than I was the day before.  I am BETTER than I was last year.  I am BETTER than I was three years ago.  I WANT to improve.  I WANT to put in the work to improve.  I do not want short cuts.  What appeals to me is the fact that short-cuts don't work.  It is a simple process of improvement.  THAT motivates me.  

Because of that inherent factor in my motivation, I frequently find myself questioning other people and their desires.  I can think of countless examples of athletes that are very negative, in general, about training.  If I didn't enjoy swimming, biking, and running I just simply wouldn't do one or any of them.  It's pretty simple.  I want to improve but I also ENJOY doing all three and racing all three.  I guess because it's so ingrained in me (the desire to improve, duh) when I see other people floating along, talking about getting better but never doing the work to do so, it makes me question all motivation. 

I know that my reasons for doing things are in no way representative of the way or whys of other people's reasoning.  I realize that and am completely comfortable with it. Everyone should be comfortable with their own reasons for doing things.  But still, what is the point of doing something if you don't want to do it better as your experience grows and matures? Isn't THAT the right attitude to have in all aspects of life? Whether it be as a person, a father, a brother, an employee, an athlete, etc, the desire to improve is - I feel anyway - completely ingrained in human nature.

Swimming is a good example of this, especially among triathletes.  Many, many triathletes want to improve their swim.  It is their weakness.  It happens and is easily predictable when it comes to adult-onset-swimming.  The time management aspect of swimming is definitely tough, but there are 2-3 months out of the year (maybe more, maybe less depending on where you live) where you are just simply not going to be biking or running as much.  Isn't that a great time to really INVEST and improve?

It is, unless you are not motivated to improve.  You can talk the talk all you want but if you really WANT something you will find a way to get it done.  It is simple.  So if you don't enjoy swimming but somehow feel compelled to do it because you consider yourself a triathlete...what's the point?  Either make yourself enjoy swimming (trust me, it's possible) and actually put in the time to get better when you have the time, or stick to duathlons.

I think everyone should search themselves a little bit and increase their general sense of self-awareness.  I am pretty aware of WHY I do things. Why do you do things? Why do you train? Why do you ENJOY training? (hopefully you do) Why DON'T you enjoy certain things?  What can you do to make yourself enjoy them more? What motivates you and makes you enjoy the things you do? Simple questions, complicated answers...

Lake Norman Sprint Triathlon

S - 12,500 yards
B - 136.8 miles
R - 39.5 miles

Time - 15.44 hours

Lake Norman Sprint Triathlon

I was a little tired for this race given the normal week of training and I had some tight spots and so was a hair nervous I would suffer as a consequence during the race.  Jenny and I drove up there and got ready only to discover that Ross (who would've been racing his first triathlon of the year) had forgotten his bike shoes.  This made me realize that I had forgotten my goggles but luckily I was able to run back to the van and grab a pair from my swim bag.  The rest of the morning passed uneventfully and we all lined up to start the race.

Swim - 11:21 (2nd)

On the front row Jenny, myself and Frank took off expeditiously.  I could feel some movement behind me and some slaps on my feet in the first 100m but ignored them figuring they would drop off eventually anyway. Jenny was on my right and Frank was on my left stroke for stroke almost all the way to the first buoy.  I had fallen behind Jenny and Frank had fallen behind me and Jenny went around the buoy and got a gap on me.  I put in a 150% effort to try and get back on her feet but I just couldn't close down the gap.  At the next buoy I backed the effort level back down a hair and hoped that I could maintain the pace through the end.

Jenny stayed in front all the way to the last turn buoy, visibly about 20-25m ahead and I could feel Frank (at least, I assumed it was Frank) on my feet.  As we rounded the last buoy (about 75m to go) I took a quick glance back to my right and saw Frank and to my left I saw another swimmer.  I was surprised but then I remembered Jen Keith was doing the race and she is a good swimmer so I put my head back down and carried into the finish.

T1 - 1:19 

I moved pretty quickly into T1, leaving Frank and Jen to their own devices. This is a pretty long run to transition and then a fairly large transition so my time isn't crazy fast. I ended up passing Jenny in T1 but only because she took a really bad route through the bikes.

Bike - 43:05 (1st)

I made a rookie mistake with my bike pre-race and had the bike in the biggest gear to go up the hill out of the YMCA parking lot. Luckily I have Di2 so shifting into an easier was relatively easy (push button push button push button) and I didn't rip my rear derailleur off so that was good.  I made it up to the top and carried on through downtown Davidson.  The first part of the course is flat and fast and on good pavement.  I made it to the roundabout and took a glance back and saw three people a fair distance behind me.  Once we made the left turn on Shearers (I can never remember how to spell that) and the pavement took a turn for the worse (but that was expected).  There's not that much to say about this bike split.  My watts were awful and my legs were dead through the first half but they started to feel a bit better once we got on the long flat road leading into Davidson.  Like last year, the bike course takes about 1000 turns in the last 2 miles of the course which is really frustrating as you lose a lot of speed but it is what it is.  I was surprised at the lack of volunteer preparedness on the course this year.  Several times I went through turns where there were either no volunteers (at least that I saw) or volunteers that were paying absolutely zero attention.  I don't blame them, triathlon is pretty boring, but if you sign up to be a volunteer it's your job to help with the safety and direction of the athletes.  I came back into transition with what I felt was a good lead on everyone else.

T2 - :49

T2 was quick and easy although there were a ton of people in transition who were ending their swims or just standing around.

Run - 17:24 (2nd)

As I was running up out of transition onto the course I heard some brakes squealing down the hill so I figured Donny was about to enter transition which meant I had at least a minute lead on him so that made me happy.  I took the first part of the run relatively easily to let my legs come around and made it to mile 1 quickly and with lots of good feelings.  There are a lot of turns as you go through the neighborhood and in a couple of spots there were families out in front of their houses so that was pretty cool.  The weather was not that hot so it was actually quite a pleasant run.  I continued to try and build pace and came back to the beginning of the loop feeling good about my run.  I carried into the finish line hoping to have achieved something I have never done before: split 1st in each of the three disciplines.  Unfortunately young Jack kept that from happening with a faster swim and run but he did not start in open.  I was alone the whole race from the end of  T1 so I was happy with my ability to push myself.

Overall - 1:13:57 (1st)

Unfortunately Donny and Binny took a wrong turn (or failed to make a turn?) and came into the finish line several minutes ahead of me so when I saw them I was a bit surprised but knew I had done the course correctly so was confident in my win.  This is the first win I've defended from last year so I was pleased, especially considering the amount of training I had done during the week.

Also of note, 2012 results

Swim - 10:42 (3rd)
Bike - 43:46 (2nd)
Run - 17:31 (2nd)
OA - 1:14:10 (1st)

It's interesting that the swim is so much slower than last year.  I am curious as to why that would be because the course, as far as I can tell, is placed on the same buoys every single year.  So while my time is only a bit faster than 2012 my swim was almost 40s slower (despite being in far, far better shape in the water than I was in '12) so I gained good time on the bike and the run versus last year where I had Donny racing around me to push me and motivate me.

All in all, it was a good race.

The week where I laughed at myself ironically

S - 19,300 yards
B - 164.7 miles
R - 52 miles

Time - 20.51 hours

The ironic timing of my Friday blog was amusing to me this weekend.  It's possible that it was ONLY amusing to me but to a certain extent you kind of have to take that and run with it. If it's amusing to you that's the only thing that matters.

Of course, I am referring to my "Getting Stoked" post about how I deal with motivational issues while training.  It was clear from the post that I deal with my problems by buying stuff, which may or may not be the best short/long-term financial strategy.  Be that as it may, it has usually worked for me.

Well, Friday rolled around and I finished up and posted the blog, went to work and then had an absolutely phenomenal long run.  My schedule called for 100 minutes aerobic and I knew it'd be a great chance to really see what "aerobic" could mean given that my running fitness has been increasing each week lately.  I had run 10.5 miles the night before with Jenny, including 20 minutes worth of threshold intervals and it had gone quite well so I was excited!

Now, aerobic - according to Brian - is defined as "power level 2, your 'I can do this for 3-4hr' pace; day in day out repeatable doesn't take you out of a workout tomorrow today pace."  If you know Brian, that's a very Brian way to describe something haha... Anyway.  I can usually tell if I've drifted out of the aerobic range and into the "tempo-ish" range by the way my calves feel throughout a run.  If they start to get sore and tight then I know I've been working a little too hard.  This run was not that, it was an hour and forty minutes of pure, aerobic bliss.


My pace was consistent, most notably on the flat parts of the run (greenways, Selwyn, etc), and I felt great throughout. So I was on a motivational high on Friday evening although we did not get to have dinner (big group dinner) until almost 10pm so in hindsight that was a really, really bad situational timing incident and may have affected my Saturday.

The weather for the weekend was going to be bad, especially on Saturday.  After swimming in the cold 65 degree air and rain in the morning at Cordelia I just could simply not get motivated to ride.  I couldn't do it.  I was scheduled to get in 4 hours both days and Saturday I just did not have the desire to get on my bike.  Indoors or outdoors.  I was a little upset with myself but it's been a long time since I took a "me" day and I think in hindsight I was smart to not do the ride I was "planning" on doing Saturday.  Either way, I got excited to ride again on Sunday and got to ride with a good group of friends I hadn't ridden with in a long time and managed to put in some decent efforts so was pleased, especially after seeing my run totals, with the week.

Cool story bro!