Made it to CH

I'm here in Switzerland!  I left Tuesday evening and after a short layover in Dusselforf, Germany, I touched down in Zurich at about 15:00.  After wandering around a couple train stations, I finally made it to my hotel in Zurich. The sad thing is after one day, I am already getting tired of lugging around my bike.  I guess I will just have to learn to deal with it.

Last night I had a nice meal at an Italian restaurant near my hotel, and then went to bed around 22:30 local time.  I thought I was going to have a hard time adjusting to the 9 hour time difference, but I think I'm adjusting quite well.

This morning I woke up around 7:00, threw down a banana and some juice, and went for a touristy run through Zurich.  It was an interesting run and I felt sort of out of place as I was running amongst a bunch of people dressed in business attire commuting to work.  I was also scared I was going to get lost, but fortunately I made it back to my hotel. 

Now I am about to go catch a train to Rapperswil, the sight of the race on Sunday.  I had hoped to post some pictures, but the hotel wifi seems to not be letting me email the pictures from my phone.  I'll continue to post here during my trip as much as possible, hopefully with pictures too.

70.3 Switzerland Preview

My next race is a big one! Exactly a week from today on Sunday June 3rd, I will be racing the 70.3 Switzerland in Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland. This will be my third venture into the half ironman distance.  Last year at Vineman and Vegas Worlds, I had great swim and bike legs, but basically bonked on the run.  I partly attribute that to inadequate nutrition on the bike and basic lack of run fitness.  Leading up to both of those races, I was battling shin splints which prevented me from putting in the solid long runs I needed.  Right now, I think I have figured out my nutritional needs (I guess I'll see if I am correct), and I feel like I have built up a solid training base going into this race.  I'm also excited for a change of scenery from the Los Angeles chaos that I live day-to-day to something more calming and scenic like this:

I expect there to be cows wearing berets all along the bike course.

Here are some thoughts I have going into the race:

Swim - Looking at the results from last year, there did not seem to be any super fast swim times in my division. So, unless last years results are skewed because of some lake monster slowing everyone down or if some superstar swimmers end up racing this year, I expect I can finish the swim at or near the front of my division.  My only concern right now is the water temperature in Lake Zurich.  Europe had a nasty winter and I have read that the lake is colder than normal for this time of the year.  I guess there is nothing I can do about that other than just deal with it.

Bike - The bike course consists of two loops with about 300m (1000ft) of climbing each loop.  That's a decent amount of climbing, which I like. My plan is to just get into a groove and push it.  That's about it.  Oh yeah, and make sure I take in enough calories so that I don't bonk on the run.

Run - The run is fairly flat other than a section of stairs that the race calls "The Stairway To Heaven".  Watching videos of previous years, there were cheerleaders at this section of the course.  Not your average high school cheerleader, but more like the cheerleaders from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. I hope the cheerleaders are on the run course again this year.  I'll need the motivation.  As I mentioned earlier, I have bonked on the run in my previous two half ironmans.  I think I have figured out how to avoid the bonking, but I guess I'll soon find out.  I rarely make goals before races other than to race fast, but I think I am going to put a goal of a 1:25 half marathon for this race.  On fresh legs I'd have not worries of meeting that goal, but at the tail end of a triathlon...we'll see if I can do it.

Once the suffering race is over, I plan to take several days and venture into Northern Italy while my body recovers.  Haven't decided exactly where I will be going, but thinking of exploring the Piedmont wine region and visiting Cinque Terre.  Once I feel my legs have recovered, I plan to head back up into Switzerland and do some riding through the Swiss Alps.  I have read about many great rides, but the one that I am looking at riding includes the Grimsel-, Furka-, and Sustenpass.  Here is some of the scenery along the route:

And some more scenery:

Those photos were taken off of the internet.  Hopefully I will have my own photos to share when I get back from my travels.

2012 Wildflower Photos

I published my race report before I was able to grab some photos from Brightroom.  Here are a few photos of me racing.

I don't know why I am smiling as I begin to climb Lynch Hill...

I look like I'm having too much fun out there...

At least I look beat at the finish...

Note, the clock was 20 minutes off from my chip time...

I dislike posing for photos, but my camp buddies insisted...

Finally, I neglected to give a shout out to TriSports.com during my initial race report.  I have received much needed support while being a TriSports.com athlete over the past two seasons and that support was once again extremely valuable leading up to Wildflower this past weekend.  Many exciting things are currently happening at TriSports.com.  One of the most significant is the soon opening of a new retail store in Tempe, AZ. Updates on the new Tempe store can be found on the TriSports Blog. As always, please remember to use coupon code MTRIPP-S for any purchase at TriSports.com and you will receive 10% off of your purchase!

2012 Wildflower Race Report

This past weekend I raced in the Wildflower Olympic Distance Triathlon.  In my last post, I said I had a lofty goal for this race.  I did not end up meeting that goal (more on this later), but did end up earning the overall win at the Olympic distance and I'm super happy with that!

I started the weekend by rolling into the campground on Thursday evening and had a blast camping with a great group of people.  Two of my camp buddies did not plan to race, but those plans quickly changed once they showed up at the festival area and remembered it is more fun to participate in race than to watch it.  In all, we were a diverse group: two of us raced the mountain bike triathlon, two raced the long course triathlon, and three raced the Olympic triathlon.  We also managed to take goofy group photos.

We camped near mile 7 of the long course triathlon run course.  It ended up being a great spot for watching the race on Saturday.  I especially enjoyed sitting alongside the run course and feasting on a big sandwich as athletes ran past me while they were 4.5+ hours into their race.  I know...I was going to be doing the same thing the next day (but only about 1/2 the distance).

I decided to again sleep in the comfort of my Subaru Outback again this year.

After a couple days of relaxing and watching the long course race on Saturday, I was finally ready for the race on Sunday.  Here's a quick summary of how it went:

Swim - Last year there were some pretty fast guys on the bike and run.  I know I have a relative advantage in the swim, so my strategy was to push pretty hard during the swim so I could get some space between any speedsters trying to catch me on the bike or run.  A lot of the guys in my wave decided to sprint as soon as the gun went off.  That soon ended and I began to start building a gap from the pack by the time I reached the first buoy.  From there on, I basically focused on staying on course and navigating through the swimmers from the waves that went off before me.  Coming into T1, I think I had about a 2.5 minute lead over the next guy in my wave.  Mission accomplished...now onto the bike.

Bike - I once again struggled getting my wetsuit off in T1, but had a quick bike mount and managed to get my shoes on during the small flat section before Lynch Hill.  Because I pushed the swim pretty hard, my heart rate was pretty high at the beginning of the bike, which made climbing Lynch Hill all the more fun.  At the top of Lynch, I narrowly avoided disaster as one of the collegiate athletes from an earlier wave suddenly veered out of control and ran into my rear tire.  Luckily it was just a glance and didn't take me down, but she ended up hitting the pavement. I hope she was OK.  Once I got out of the campgrounds and onto County Road G14, I just put my head down and motored through the bike.  I didn't get passed so I knew all I had to do was hold it on the run.

Run - I saw two of my camp buddies, Beth and Robert, while I was coming out of T2.  I flashed them the shaka and started my 10K journey around the campground. I had run the course three previous times, so I had a good idea of how I would have to pace the hills and descents.  The sun was starting to heat up, so I took full advantage of the aid stations by dumping water over my head.  The cool water was very helpful and prevented the heat from draining my energy. Just like the bike leg, I tried to motor through the long San Antonio Road climb and keep a steady foot cadence throughout.  Once I reach the top of Lynch, I just let gravity do it's job and carry me to the finish line.

My final time was 2:04:49 which was good enough for an overall win at the Olympic Distance race. This was a great start to the season, but I have a lot more to accomplish in 2012.

So...back to my lofty goal for the race. My time last year was about 25 seconds slower than the course record for my age group. Going into this year, I figured I could shave off 25 seconds and had a goal to break the course record.  I ended up missing the record by 3 seconds!  It's crazy that in a 2 hour 5 minute race, each second counts.  I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought back over my race several times and identified all of the spots where I could have made up those three seconds (I had a long 4 hr drive home Sunday night to do just that).  It was disappointing to not meet my goal, but at the same time I am very happy with my overall performance out there.

For those who appreciate data and/or consistency, check out my splits this year compared to last year in the tables below.  I basically raced an identical race in 2012 as I did in 2011.  The average swim and bike paces were identical and the run pace was only different by 1 second.  Even more interesting was that my times improved in 2012 for each leg of the race, even the transitions.  The improvement unfortunately wasn't enough to drop 25 seconds.

2011:

2012:

My next race is a big one.  I will be racing 70.3 Switzerland in Rapperswil-Jona Switzerland on June 3rd.  I am super excited to be mixing it up with the Europeans and as of today I think I am the only American signed up to race in my age group.  Stay tuned for a preview post of this race.