30:15 Upper Body Massacre - Memorial Day Edition

Mrs. Gias wanted to get up today and do some upper body.  Don't know why, but this woman loves doing pullups and pushups.  We have probably 10 upper body workouts and she chooses 30:15 - 24 sets of pushups and pullups.  As you've read before...it's tough.  But she likes to work hard, and I love that about her.

Track Intervals

It's Memorial day weekend and I've been slacking a bit the last few days on structred workouts.  Friday I cleaned out the garage, Saturday I painted the trim on the front of our house and today, I needed to run.

I decided to try something a little different todayy so this afternoon I headed to the local high school and did some intervals on the track.  It was mid-afternoon and the sun was beating down to the tune of about 90 degrees.  Perfect for getting a solid sweat going and doing some speed work in the heat.

I warmed up with a quarter mile jog and then some stretching before getting into the intervals.  I decided I'd do distance rather than time intervals, just to see what happened.  I would go all out for a quarter mile (one lap) and then briskly walk a half lap, rinse and repeat until my quarter mile times were over 2 minutes (8 minute mile average). 

My first run interval was 1:32 (about a 6 minute mile) and the walk was about 2 minutes (16 minute mile).  I continued this cycle for about 25 minutes and was dripping sweat.  It felt good to get out and run hard, sweat buckets and torch some calories.  I think I'm going to start doing speed work once a week because it's quick, effective and (hopefully) easy to track progress.

P90X Chest and Back

Military pushups with a leg in the air...that's just silly.

My two days of doing nothing are over after my race and so this morning we jumped back into some morning workouts.  As Mrs. Gias has a race in about 10 days and we haven't started a new 90 day cycle yet, I let her choose what she wanted to do.  To my surprise, she wanted to do a resistance workout that worked "here" (pointing to her arms sides and upper back).  I told her we could do Chest and Back, Chest Shoulders and Triceps, Back and Biceps, 30:15...we have a lot of those type of workouts.  She settled on Chest and Back.

At the end of the workout, we were both totally spent and I asked her, half jokingly, if she wanted to do a quick ab routine too.  Her response:

"In hindsight, I don't even want to do Chest and Back."

Classic.

Kansas City Triathlon - Race Report

Prologue
I was getting ready to pack up my bike into our Jeep the night before the race.  I was giving Sir Blanco a quick once over with my multi-tool, tightening bolts, checking the roll of the wheels, basically making sure that the bike was ready for the race tomorrow.  As I was spinning the front wheel, I noticed that my cyclo-computer didn't come on. It automatically turns on when the wheel starts spinning so it can record how fast the bike is going, how far, etc.  I thought maybe my fiddling had pushed the sensor on the wheel out of alignment so I fiddled a bit more to no avail.  I then discovered that the lead wire had split.  Don't know how, don't know why.  This was a bit disconcerting because you don't need a spedometer when you're racing, but it's nice to see how you're doing and how far you've got to go.  I decided this was either a bad omen, or it was my one equipment hic-up for this race and this just meant that everything else would go perfectly...we'll see.

Pre-Race
I woke up excited.  The alarm was set for 4:45am and I was up two minutes early.  I got out of bed and started my daily routine like it was any other day.  I shaved, showered and then went downstairs for a little breakfast.  The biggest difference was that I was wearing spandex while I made my bowl of oatmeal. 

Normally, I only wear spandex when we go out to eat.

Mrs. Gias got up just after I did at 5am as she had some pre-race snacks to make and needed to get our girls up and out of bed in order to get to the race site by 7:15am - the time I told her she should be there to see the swim start at 7:34am.  Of course, she's a trooper so she was up with a positive attitude making sure I was ready to go.  I gave her a kiss and hopped in the Jeep for my 25 minute drive to Longview Lake.

I got to the race site a bit before 6am and it was already pretty full.  There were way more people there than I anticipated so I quickly texted Mrs. Gias to let her know the parking situation was going to be a pain and then found a spot along the course route about a half-mile from transition to park the car. 

I walked in with a number of other racers and upon entering transition to rack my bike, I got body-marked.  They had assigned transition spots according to your bib number, which was nice, no fighting for spots.  I quickly went to my spot and set up my gear.

Next I had to get in the chip line, which was pretty uneventful and then on to the porta-john line.  I chatted it up with a few other racers about how this was their first race, or their 50th race and what to expect on the course.  It was nice to be one of the athletes jawing with the rest of the athletes about what we were about to do.

Before I knew it the announcement came over the sound system that transition would close in 15 minutes and a pre-race meeting wout start shortly thereafter.  It was time to put on the wetsuit and head to the beach.

I have to admit, I had some trepedation walking to the water.  I knew it would be cold and I'd never done anything like this before.  I thought the best thing to do would be to follow my plan and hop in the water to get acclimated to the temperature and try to swim a few strokes. 

I jumped right in and....damn...the water was cold.  It was 60 degrees and it literally takes your breath away when you first get in.  I tried swimming around a little and with the wetsuit on, and after a minute or two it really wasn't that bad.  Could I tell it was cold?  Yes.  Was it unbearable?  No.  It's amazing what 5mm of neoprene will do for you.

A few minutes more passed and I headed up to the beach to get near the start, it was about 5 minutes away.  It was at this point I saw my dad waving his arms from the back of the start chute.  I hussled back there and said hi to him and Mrs. Gias.  They told me the rest of my cheering section had arrived and were on the other side of the beach ready to see me pop out of the water.  They wished me good luck and I headed down to the edge of the water for the start.

The Swim
I lined up for the start of the swim with the rest of the males 30-49...that's a big group by the way.  They originally told us it would be by age group, then they decided to put the four largest age groups together for what amounted to a mass start...no idea why.  Anyway, I knew that if I swam like I knew how, I would do fine...although, those bouys looked pretty far away...and the water was awfully choppy from all the wind. 

Go!

It was a mad dash into the water.  If you've never seen a mass start for a swim race, there's a reason they call it the washing machine.  It's random limbs flailing everywhere, water splashing and churning, you get kicked in the face, you smack someone else's arm, someone grabs your leg, people are going sideways across your back...it's chaos. 

Oh, and the water is 60 degrees, taking your breath away and making it that much harder to breathe and focus on swimming.

I sighted the bouy about 600 meters out, but just barely, the sun was rising directly in the line of sight with the bouy making the glare pretty blinding.  I started stroking and sighting like I'd practiced, which, by the way, wasn't working at all.  I'd look up and stare into the sun for a second, just long enough to get kicked in the face and then try swimming again.  Even after we were out about 200 metersI was still having a hard time breathing and I could tell I wasn't swimming straight...at all. 

When I got to the midway point between the shore and the furthest bouy, about 300 meters or so, I panicked.  I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, I couldn't stroke regularly, I had the realization that I was already exhausted from the start and I wasn't sure I could continue.  I thought seriously about trying to get to the nearest paddle boat to have them take me to shore. 

It was terrible. 

All of my training, my delusions of grandeur of finishing the race, of having my cheering section see me exit the water, finishing the triathlon like I promised myself I would do, doing triathlons in the future, all flashed before my eyes in an instant. 

I told myself to settle down, catch your breath and get on it.  You're a good swimmer, you're comfortable in the water and you can certainly swim 1500 meters.  Quit jacking around feeling sorry for yourself, put your head down and go.  If you run out of air, switch to breast stroke for a while.  If your time is slower than your goal, do better next time.  You think you're going to drown, but you're not.  Forget about everything else and...just...swim.

I started making little deals with myself, just like I do when I'm in the pool.  Swim to that bouy and then take a quick break.  Do 10 strokes then site the bouy.  Say a Hail Mary breathing to the left, then say one breathing to the right. 

Before I knew it I was on the back stretch of the swim coming back towards shore.  Coming into shore was significantly faster than going out. I was almost in a rhythm, or as close to one as I could find, and I knew I could make it. 

Of course my rhythm was something like stroke stroke, kick in the face, turn slightly left, then back right, stroke stroke, repeat.  It was like some dark Philip Glass musical number about a slow triathlete. (Yeah, I just dropped a Philip Glass reference, deal with it.)

I think the biggest problem for my actual swimming was that I could not, for the life of me, seem to swim straight.  The wind was strong, the water was choppy and I was all over the damn lake.  I'm sure I ended up swimming well over 2000 meters with the crazy diagonals I was making.

Red is the actual swim route.  Yellow is the Geek's swim route.  "Well there's your problem..."

Was the swim a good one?  No.

Did I panic, get scared and feel as if I would almost drown?  Yes.

Did I drink so much lake water that hydration wasn't a problem?  Yes.

Did I finish it and smile for the camera?  Of course.

It was only later that I would learn that my piss poor swim time would still land me in the top 50% overall.  I've got to practice open water swimming...like...everyday.

T1
I hit the beach exhausted, mentally and physically.  The panic, the cold and the one mile (probably more) swim took a lot out of me.  Not to mention I was pretty shaken up from being so panicked in the water, I was just happy to be alive, but mad at myself for doing so poorly.

I ran up the beach and saw my full contingent cheering section for the first time.  Both my sisters with their husbands, Mrs. Gias, her mom, both my little girls and my dad.  There were cheers, signs and all kind of yells.  I can't tell you how much of a pick-me-up it is to have a cheering section, especially when you finish something like that swim which really had me dejected because I thought I was off to such a poor start. 

Hey moron, it's stuck on your watch.

I hussled up the beach trying to pull my wetsuit down to my waist where it got stuck on my watch.  Here's the thing, if you don't wear a watch when you practice taking your wetsuit off, but you wear a watch for your race, your're going to look like a one-armed idiot running into transition.  I was flailing like some kind of mental patient trying to get my arm out of a straight jacket...not my most graceful moment. 

I ran through transition area, which seems substantially longer when you're in bare feet across the uneven asphalt, and got to my gear.  My younger sister, her husband and Mrs. Gias had raced up the beach on the other side and were right outside transition giving me encouragement. 

I stripped down the wetsuit, this time catching it on my timing chip on my left leg.  Let's just say that Mrs. Gias tood a few too many pictures of the Geek bending over to get the wetsuit off of my left leg.  I'll spare you from having to look at any of those here.

I slipped on my shoes, sunglasses and helmet and was off.  I ran towards the transition exit and then hopped on my bike.

Wait a minute, where are my feet?

The Bike
I started the bike and my pace felt kind of slow (of course, I couldn't really tell because I didn't have a working spedometer).  I was tired and didn't quite have my legs under me yet.  I had used a lot more energy in the swim than I thought and my legs were already feeling a bit tired.

No biggie, just a 25 mile ride with 20-30 mph winds followed by a 6 mile run...who needs fresh legs?

Anyway, I started to ride and was still in my head about my swim.  I checked my watch and thought it was about 33 minutes or so, about 8-9  minutes slower than my goal.  Realistically, the goal should have been a bit more conservative, but, live and learn.  I was upset and dejected at my swim time and then with the bike seemingly starting so slowly I didn't quite know what to make of my race day.  Honestly, I was mostly worried about my cheering section having to stand around waiting for me to finish sometime late into the evening.  Yeah, a little dramatic, but hey, it's all in my head.

Not having a bike computer I had no idea how fast I was going so I just kept plugging along.  The course was a 12.5 mile loop we did twice.  The first 6-7 miles were on roads with a pretty significant headwind/crosswind, which really makes you work hard and go slow.  Then we hit a neighborhood section which was cool because people that lived there came out to cheer, but was not cool because there were a lot of tight turns that made keeping a decent pace difficult.

I almost look like I know what I'm doing...I should be an actor.

Luckily you come out of the neighborhood, hit one more massive hill and then...mile 10.  Manna from heaven.  It's downhill/flat for about 2.5 miles with a tailwind.  It literally felt like I was flying during this section.  The blacktop smoothed out, I found a gear I liked and just cruised.  It was awesome. 

Yeah, even my signs used my nom de plume...awesome.

The cheering section was out in full force when I finished lap 1 and it was again, like someone recharged my batteries when I saw my signs and heard them yell.  Best feeling ever.  I muscled through that first loop and checked my watch.  44 minutes. 

Wait a minute.  My goal time was 47 minutes per loop...I'm ahead of schedule on the bike...in this wind?  That's crazy.  That was a nice pick-me-up as well.  I mashed through my gears into the wind and neighborhood one more time gaining confidence the whole way, knowing that the last few miles I could do a bit of resting and still have a strong run.

T2
I rolled into T2 almost exactly in 90 minutes averaging a higher speed than at last weeks duathalon, which was half the distance of today's ride.  I don't know what it was, but something on the bike went right.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still SLOW, I was just a little less slow today.

I got into T2, dropped my helmet, racked my bike and made like a banshee for the exit.  I was tired and didn't have my legs under me, but I was ready to finish this thing.

Wipe that grin off your face, there's 6 miles to go!

The Run
As has happened to me pretty much everytime I start a run after a bike ride, the first mile is SLOW.  I'm pretty wobbly and trying to get a rhythm going is difficult for me.  Luckily at the top of the first hill about a quarter mile in, my cheering section was out in full force.  I had to smile.

The run course had one pretty decent hill, but for the most part was pretty flat running around the lake.  I passed a number of people on the run, which is weird for me because I am not that fast.  Luckily today I was consistent.  I kept my pace pretty even throughout.  My first 5k split was about 28 minutes and I slowed down just a bit on the second half (I know, I know...negative split your run...I was tired, leave me alone!). 

This is right at about the three hour mark...smile less, run more.

I saw my cheering section one more time on the trail towards the finish around maybe mile 5 or so. This is where you know you can finish but you just need a little bit of mind over matter to make sure you keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

The run felt like it went by pretty quickly and my knee felt great...which was a huge relief.  I got about a quarter mile out from the finish and noticed one more guy in my age group ahead of me that I wanted to pass.  I kicked it up as much as I could, which wasn't much, but I got to him and I think he tried to step it up for about three steps and then just let me go.  It felt good to finish strong and as I crossed the finish, my cheering section went nuts!

Of course this is the always flattering downstride picture where it looks like I'm losing to gravity.

Post Race

I walked slowly down the finisher's chute, got a bottle of water and my post race towell and made my way through the barricade to my family.  I went to chat with them, take some pictures and basically just enjoy a few minutes of the morning.  I told them all about how I thought I was going to quit 10 minutes into the swim, but how thinking about seeing them at the finish pushed me through.  I also saw a few people that I had trained with and shared a few war stories with them.

The hairy chest is a little gross.

I even ran into my coach and a few other "experienced" triathletes.  They made me feel pretty good (partially because I actually beat my swim coach on my swim time) and also because everyone was pretty much saying that the swim was terrible.  They all thought the water was cold, the chop made it impossible to navigate and that it was OK to have had a bad swim.  One guy even said he swam Escape From Alcatraz three weeks ago and that the San Francisco Bay was an easier swim than Longview that day.  That helped restore a bit of confidence for next time...

Cheering Section

After I finished the race I was looking for the awards podium because I was certain that I would easily win for best cheering section.  Who knew that wasn't a real award?  It doesn't really matter, because everyone there knew the Geek had the best fans.

My cheering section minus Mrs. Gias...somebody had to take pictures.

I've mentioned them above, but I have to give at least one more shout out to my fabulous cheering section.  They came out in full force for the beginning, middle and end of a three hour plus race on a Sunday morning. 

They brought signs, snacks and a fabulous attitude.  They were reason enough to finish the race.  

You guys are the best.  Thanks.

Kansas City Triathlon - Quick Update

I'm totally worn out and don't have time to write a full report tonight; that will come tomorrow.  Let's just say I finished the triathlon, the swim was terrible, the bike was pretty good and the run was a run...nothing special. 

I finished 332 out of 427 in 3:11:11, which was close to my prediction of 3:03.  I can pinpoint where the extra 8 minutes came from...exactly.  I predicted the swim at 25 minutes, I did the swim in 34 minutes.  The short story on the swim is it was cold, it was choppy and I panicked.

The one thing I wanted to mention for sure was that I easily, and I'm saying EASILY won the award for best cheering section of any other competitor.  Mrs. Gias came out with both B & G, my dad, both sisters and their husbands and my mother in law were there...with signs...and themed snacks...and loud cheering.  It was awesome.  Huge thanks for taking the time out of a Sunday morning to come support the Geek on his silly little New Year's resolution.  You all are the best.

More to come...

Kansas City Triathlon - Pre-Race

"I predict you'll be crumpled on the ground crying like a little girl...before the race even starts."

Well, tomorrow is the Kansas City Triathlon.  I picked up my packet yesterday afternoon and got my bib, swim cap and a few goodies.  After last week's race, I can't decide if I'm more nervous about this race or less.  Overall I think I'm just excited to finally get out there and race.  As you know, last week was fine, but canceling the swim was kind of a buzz kill.

The good news is that today and tomorrow we're going to have the warmest temperatures of the year in Kansas City.  It looks like it will be about 70 degrees when the race starts and will likely reacy the mid to upper 80's sometime tomorrow.  There's officially no chance of rain, so it should be perfect!  The only unknown is what the wind is going to do, right now they're predicting 20mph winds out of the south, which could suck...we'll have to see.  (Usually there's less wind in the morning, so perhaps it won't be that bad.) 

The other news (not sure if it's good or bad) is that the lake water temperature is in the low 60's right now.  So definitely a bit cold and wetsuit legal, but probably not hypothermia inducing cold; which is always a bonus.

The other exciting part of tomorrow is a bunch of family members are coming out to watch me embarass myself race.  I have a few little surprises for them to keep them occupied during the race (it could get a little boring after a few hours) that I might tell you about tomorrow.

Race Prediction 
Swim 1500m (.9 miles) - This is going to be open water, a bit cold and lots of competitors around.  Frankly, not a situation I'm particularly comfortable with, even though I fancy myself a strong swimmer.  Remember, last week (when the swim was canceled) was supposed to be my run through on a short course in open water.  No such luck.  However, based on my pool times and doing a little conversion, I predict I'll finish the swim in 25 minutes.

T1 - Last week both transitions were under a minute, however, I didn't have to take off a wetsuit last week, so T1 should be slower than last week.  I anticipate it taking 2 minutes.

Bike 40km (24.9 miles) -  I am SLOW on the bike, so I'm frankly a little worried about this leg of the race.  If I take the pace I went last week, which was only half the distance of this week, the bike will take me 92 minutes.  Although maintaining that pace for double the distance seems unlikely, I'm going to predict 95 minutes on the bike.

T2 - I think I can keep T2 under a minute (or close to) because it should be similar to last week, which was less than a minute.  Thus, I predict 1 minute for T2.

Run 10k (6.2 miles) - Last week, again at half the distance I was averaging a little over a 9 minute mile.  Let's assume I can keep to about that pace for the full six miles (unlikely, but I'm an optimist) that would put the run at just under an hour.  I'm changing my strategy slightly on the run and I'm going to walk the aid stations (one per mile) to make sure I get a few calories and water; last week I think I was a bit dehydrated at the end fo the race so this may help me maintain a better pace.  I'm predicting 60 minutes for the 10k.

Total - Added together above, that predicts a finishing time of three hours, three minutes which is probably pretty accurate.  If I finish in under three hours, I'll be pretty ecstatic.  I guess we'll see tomorrow.

Lawn Work X

It's two days out from the Kansas City Triathlon, so no workouts today or tomorrow.  I did end up burning a few calories mowing the lawn this evening though.  It's been raining here pretty much non-stop for weeks, so let's just say the lawn was a bit long.  And by long, I mean, we lost one of our children when she was playing outside last week.  Yeah, it was time.

P90X+ Interval X

Here's a lateral move called Super-Skaters...it works ya.

I don't think I've ever written about Interval X before.  It's part of P90X+ (prounounced "plus" at the end), the follow up to P90X.  It's supposed to be a more advanced follow up to P90X, but I don't think the workouts are all that difficult.  They're good, don't get me wrong, just not super challenging.  Which is exactly why we did Interval X today. 

I'm only three days away from the Kansas City Triathlon and I really don't want to be sore.  Mrs. Gias wanted to get in some cardio cross training today for her run schedule, but I was worried that an Insanity workout (normally our cardio cross training of choice) might be a little more than what I was looking for. 

I definitely wanted to be active today, just not so active that my legs or abs hurt tomorrow.  Interval X is a perfect mix for that.  You can go pretty hard through the routine, but it doesn't kill you.  It's basically 15 moves for one minute each, a 60 second break and then you repeat the moves again in reverse.  The first 20 seconds of each move are easy, then 20 seconds of medium and then 20 seconds of "full tilt" as Tony calls it. 

The moves vary from jumping jacks, squats, kicks and pushups.  It has good lateral movement as well as a few moves that make you go vertical to practice your explosive leg strength.  Again, not too taxing, but enough that you are sweating pretty good at the end of the workout. 

Fountain of Youth Yoga

We were sore this morning.  I think we pushed it a little too hard on Monday with Chest and Back because neither of us could lift our arms during sun salutations without groaning something fierce.

Insanity Pure Cardio

I really did not want to workout this morning.  I was a little sore and super tired.  We went downstairs with the intention of doing an Insanity workout, we just weren't sure which one we should do.  I settled on Pure Cardio because we hadn't done it in a while and after all the pushups yesterday, by pecs were a little sore and I didn't want to be stuck in plank for 10 minutes like in Plyo Circuit.  Of course, not doing Pure Cardio for a few weeks, I forgot about the burpees and pushup jacks that end the workout. 

I don't remember being run over by a car, but I wouldn't be surprised to find tire marks across my chest.

P90X Chest and Back

Diamond Pushups - I haven't done these in a while...they're hard.

We're in a mix-n-match time period right now.  We're not using a formal schedule for our morning workouts because we've both got races coming up in the next few weeks.  We want to focus on our races and not on getting sore with Tony.  We're going to start a new round right after Mrs. Gias runs Hospital Hill the first weekend in June, but for now we're kind of playing it by ear.

That being said, Mrs. Gias wanted a good upper body workout today, so she chose Chest and Back.  Oooh, it's an oldie but a goodie.  Basically pushups and pullups with a few weighted exercises thrown in for good measure.  I went about 85% today because normally this workout makes me pretty sore and I don't want to strain myself much because of my race this week.

That or I'm just a slacker.

Heritage Park Triathlon Duathlon - Race Report

The start of the run around the lake...that we should have been swimming in.

I got up at 4:45am today to give myself plenty of time to get to the race.  I rolled out of bed and the first thing I did was flip on the weather.  It showed pretty much what I expected, 50 degrees, rain and 7-10mph winds.  Not the best weather for a race, but I'd pretty much set myself up for this, so I wasn't that worried about it. 

Oddly enough, I went through my regular morning routine, I shaved, showered, etc. just to kind of wake up and get me into the right frame of mind.  I threw on my tri-shorts and a long sleeve technical shirt - today did not seem like the day to wear a sleevless tri-top - and headed downstairs for a little breakfast.  I choked down some oatmeal and a glass of milk and headed out the door.  I had packed the car with my bike and gear last night, so I was ready to go.

I got to the parking area about 5:45am and proceeded to find a place to rack my bike in transition.  I started to set up my area, but realized that 1) it was raining a bit and I didn't want all my stuff to get wet yet; and 2) it was still waaaay freaking early because the race didn't start until 7:30am. 

I walked over to pick up my chip and get body marked and headed back to my area.  As an aside, it was kind of silly to get body marked today since I was wearing long sleeves and there wasn't a swim, but hey, I'm not in charge. 

Mine's the crappy white bike right in the middle, affectionately known as "Sir Blanco".

I jacked around with my stuff for a bit and chatted up a few people.  About 7am I went for an easy one mile warm up run and stretch, just to get the kinks out.  I visited the porta-potty one more time and I was about ready to start the race.

Who's that goofy tall guy...oh wait.

As I was lining up to start the race, Mrs. Gias walked up and found me.  It was pretty crappy weather, so I told her I wouldn't be offended if she didn't want to come out and watch, but of course, she's awesome and came out and took a bunch of pictures.  Thanks, sweetie! (and if she hadn't come...major guilt trip later)

Well, a minute or two after I saw Mrs. Gias, the race started. The first leg of the duathlon was a two mile run that I wanted to take easy to see how my left knee was going to hold up.  I started running and felt strong, but I held the pace back a bit to make sure I could continue the rest of the race.  Those first two miles went pretty quick and before I knew it I was in T1.  I did the first two miles in 16:39 - an 8:19/mile pace.  Faster than I planned to be going, but it still felt SLOW compared with the monster athletes I was competing with. However, overall I was pretty happy with this first split.

Here's me coming out of T1 trying not to look like a total idiot...mission failure.

T1 was actually a place where I had a bit of anxiety.  Getting on the bike, while running, in front of people, had the potential to be a disaster.  Let's just say I am not nearly as graceful as I should be and I recently took a fall on my driveway that didn't have me brimming with confidence.  Luckily I didn't have any falling incidents and got out of T1 in 54 seconds - that's an excellent time for me (and for most people), I'd take less than a minute in every race.

Quit smiling for the camera and pedal faster!

The bike leg started and it was about a 4 mile loop we did three times.  There were some good and bad things about the ride.  The good: it started with a nice downhill section and ended with a decent downhill section; of course the bad: the middle was pretty much all up hill, which was awful.  Other challenges of the bike course was the fact that it was 50 degrees and drizzling the whole time.  This made visibility through my sunglasses streaky and cloudy at best.  I know what you're asking right now, "Geek, why didn't you take off your sunglasses?" - well the drizzle and wind would have then went directly into my eyes and likely would have been even worse...lesser of two evils I suppose.  I also think I was the only one wearing winter thisulate gloves while riding the bike...what can I say, I'm doing this on the cheap and it was cold. 

The bike went well and I averaged about 16.2 miles per hour, which isn't fast, but it's pretty decent for me on this course.  Only one person in the race averaged more than 20mph, which tells me the course was slow and difficult today. 

What kind of weird ballet-dismount is that?

The other nice thing about the bike was that it was on a loop.  Yes, it was a little monotonous, however, I also got to see Mrs. Gias every 12 minutes when I passed the spectators, so that was a nice bonus.  I finished the bike in 42:08.  The first lap seemed slow, but before I knew it I had finished all three laps and was ready to head into T2.

Me falling down woudl have been a far more interesting picture.

If I was nervous about falling coming out of T1, T2 was a total nightmare scenario.  It was wet and I am not the best and unclipping and continuing to jog next to my bike.  Also, if you've never ridden a bike for a while and then tried to run right afterwords, it's harder than you think.  Your legs are wobbly and it's hard to get your bearings. Luckily, I unclipped waaaaaay early and was able to run into T2 without falling on my butt. 

Frankly, that's like a victory for the day right there.

It was at this point that I began to questioin why the hell I ever decided to try multisport.

I got through transition in :59 seconds, again, less than a minute, I'll take it.  I started the home stretch three mile run.  I have to say, I felt weaker than I thought I would.  I don't know if it was the earlier run, the fact I didn't drink as much as I should have on the bike or if the bike/weather combination really just wore me down more than I think that it should have.  For the most part the run was pretty uneventful and I kept a decent pace, not as fast as I'd like, but not bad.  I did the run in 27:18 or about a 9:06/mile pace.

I was honestly beat near the end of the run and I really couldn't kick much to finish at full speed.  That's odd for me because usually I have a little something left in the tank to finish hard and strong.  I guess I was just really beat today.  Honestly, the cold and rain (and the terribly thick, humid air) got to me. 

In any event, I finished the race with a smile on my face and felt good about it.  My final time was 1:27:56 and since I've never done a duathlon before, it's a Personal Record! Ha!  After I finished I met up with Mrs. Gias, got some post-race goodies (chocolate milk, bagels, etc.) and went to find my stuff in transition.  It was pretty cold and raining still, so I didn't stick around to chat with people too long (and nobody else was sticking around either). 

So a  few thoughts on the race:

•  I'm humbled by the fitness level of these people.  Wow, I thought I was in pretty good shape, but the people I raced today are machines.  They are fast on the run, faster on the bike and just keep going.  It's a lot to take in.
• I've got a race next week that's about twice the distance of this race...I'm a little worried.  Mrs. Gias asked me after I finished (and was totally worn out) if I would have rather gone into the race next week not knowing how hard this was going to be or if I was glad that I had this little warmup/wakeup call.  I told her I wasn't sure...
• Total respect for Ironman triathlons.  They are literally, ten times longer than what I did today.  That's crazy.
• Triathletes love their gear.  I mean, I had kind of figured this out before today, but the number of $6000 bikes with every gadget imaginible, even for people with no hope of ever winning anything was unbelievable. 
• I've got lots of work to do.  I can finish races...but I want to be faster.

Heritage Park Triathlon Duathlon - Pre-Race

So I was getting all fired up for tomorrow's triathlon.  Yeah, it was going to be cold, it was probably going to rain, but I was excited and ready to go.  Then today when I went to packet pickup they told us that they canceled the swim and made the triathlon into a duathlon due to the inclement weather.  (For those of you not in Kansas City right now, it's been raining since Wednesday and it's about 50 degrees...but seriously, if I'm swimming I'm already wet...htfu.)

Buzzkill.

I was totally excited about the swim, I was doing this race to get open water experience swimming with a group and to practice transitions.  Now, not so much.  Now I have to run extra, not swim, not use my awesome new wetsuit and miss out on the discipline that I could actually do really well in.  No, I'm not a super speedy swimmer as far as swimmers go, but as far as triathletes go, I might be able to get near the front of the pack.  Arghhh!

OK, enough complaining.

So the duathlon is tomorrow and here's how it works.  2 mile run, 11.5 mile bike, 3 mile run.  So basically you replace the swim with a two mile run.  This will be good because I need to do more running and practicing the bike in a group is much needed too.

So here's the prediction:

2 mile run- start out with an easy pace and come into transition strong - 18 minutes

11.5 mile bike - go hard and see what happens - I'd love to go under 40 minutes, I think 45 is more realistic.  I previewed the course and it's got lots more hills than I thought it would so it could be a challenge.

3 mile run - if my knee is hurting - 33 minutes - if my knee is fine - 27 minutes - not blistering fast, but still pretty hard.

I'm a little worried about full on race pace for a run because my knee has been bothering me, so I'm taking it pretty easy in those predictions.  If it's feeling good, maybe it'll be better.

Back tomorrow to let you know what happens...

Rest

Heritage Park Triathlon in two days.  No workout today, didn't want to risk being sore this weekend.  The anticipation is killing me...

Two Mile Run and Patience Yoga

I went into work this morning super early, like 4 something in the morning early, so I didn't get a workout in.  After I got home I put B & G to bed and Mrs. Gias had a meeting at church, so I took advantage of some alone time. 

I got on the treadmill and pounded out a quick two miles.  It was a good run, not too hard and my knee didn't hurt at all.  That's a good sign.  I have to admit, I've been really tenative on my knee the last few weeks and pretty scared to run hard.  This weekend is a short run, about three miles and I'm excited to really open up and see what happens.

After I finished my run I popped in Tony's Patience "Hummingbird" Yoga to get a nice post run stretch.  It was 35 minutes of quiet, relaxing stretching.  It was a pretty good for a taper workout.

Two days and counting until race day...I'm getting pretty stoked.

9 Mile Bike Ride

I didn't get home until 7pm tonight, so I didn't have time for much of a workout. My weakest discipline right now is the bike, so I hopped on for a quick ride.  I got about 9 miles done in 30 minutes, not a bad pace and it was a good confidence builder for this weekend. 

A few quick points about my ride:

• I got passed by two bikers today that were much faster than I am.  I wasn't mad about it, until one of the guys passed me and then rode without hands for a minute or two, still pulling away.  I know I'm slow, but you don't have to rub it in.
• My bike is not very good, and the shifters are showing that on these harder rides; sometimes it shifts for no reason, which is kind of annoying and doesn't give me a lot of confidence for a smooth ride.
• My front tire loosened up a little and came out of true during a ride over some bumps.  That would be terrible during a ride...

Reader Question

I got a reader question from midlife_swimmer the other day and I'd been meaning to answer it because I love reader questions!

midlife_swimmer asks:
"What length tri's are you looking at and what is your previous time on the swims and your goal time. When you swim in a tri does it feel like a warm up or part of the workout to you."

My current "A" race is the Kansas City Triathlon on May 23, which is Olympic distance.  That is, a 1500 meter swim (~.9 miles), a 40km bike (~24.9 miles) and 10km run (~6.2 miles).  I also have another race coming up as kind of a "warm up" for that race.  This weekend I'll be doing the Heritage Park Triathlon which is a 587 yd swim, 11.5 mile bike and 3 mile run. 

Both swims are open water and my guess is...cold.  Our morning temperatures have been in the high 40's low 50's for the past few weeks, so at least I have that to look forward to. At the Heritage Park Triathlon last year the water temperature was 58 degrees for the swim... it was actually warmer than the ambient temperature for the bike and run, which is kind of scary.  Yeah, I feel a little stupid for doing races this early in the season in Kansas, but hey, what could go wrong? (besides hypothermia, drowning, frostbite...aghhh!)

As for my times, when I do distance work at "race pace" I average around a 1:25-1:30/100 yards.  My last time trial was 15 minutes and I did 1050 yards - right at 1:25/100.  If I'm doing repeat 100's for practice, I usually slow that down to 1:40/100 interval work or go about 75%-80% and take 15-20 seconds in between sets depending on the workout I'm doing.

I'd love to get my time down to 1:15/100 (or so) which would put me on pace to finish an Olympic tri swim in under 20 minutes.

So...does the swim feel like a warm-up or part of the workout?  When I'm training it defintely feels like part of the workout.  I'm a decent swimmer so improvement comes in small increments these days.  I can shave one second per 100 off by increasing my kick cadence or upping my stroke count from 17-18 per 25 yards...stupid little stuff.  The real improvements for me come from doing lots of laps and trying to keep myself breathless during practice.  So definitely a workout.

During races, the swim is my best discipline so it's not so much part of the workout as the place I want to "try" to shine a bit.  I know I'll get schooled on the bike and the run, but I can at least keep up during the swim.  So is it a warm-up...nope...it's my favorite part of the race!

Thanks for the question midlife_swimmer!  If you haven't checked out her amazing story, you should check out her blog!

Insanity Cardio Power and Resistance - Mash Up

I let Mrs. Gias pick the workout this morning and she decided she wanted to do a little Insanity.  I really like Insanity workouts so I was totally game.  Nothing too eventful, I felt good, didn't take any mid-set breaks and built up a nice sweat.

Mother's Day X

We finished our 90 day round last friday and yesterday I went for a good swim and bike session.  We're still trying to figure out the best way to continue working out and supporting our upcoming races but we haven't settled on a schedule just yet.  The fact we didn't quite know what we wanted to do today coupled with the fact that it's mother's day and Mrs. Gias wanted to get some much deserved extra sleep, we took the day off.

60 Minute Bike Ride & Epic Transition Fail

I got back from my swim about 5:45am and got my biking clothes on to try to get a quick early morning ride in before the rest of my family woke up.  I hopped on my bike and started riding.  As an aside...what the hell is up with this weather?  During the week it's 75-80 degrees, sunny, no wind, Saturday or Sunday come along and it's 45 degrees, cloudy and windy.  I'm getting tired of riding in this crap.  OK, rant over...

So the ride was pretty uneventful, until the very end. 

I'm about a week out from my first race, so I decided when I was coming in from my ride to practice doing a transitioin from the bike to the run.  In my head, I saw myself rolling into the transition area on one foot, hopping gracefully from my bike, leaning it against the rack, ripping off my helmet and beginning my run. 

This is not what happend.  At.  All.

So I rolled into my driveway and unclipped my right foot from the pedal and swung my leg over the seat so that all of my weight was on my left foot while coasting at about 5-7 miles per hour.  It was at this point that I would hop off and gracefully jog with my bike to slow it down and start running.  Of course the critical mistake here...I did not unclip my left foot.  When I tried to hop off, my left foot stayed on the pedal and the bike wanted to keep going.  This resulted in me falling sideways/backwards right on my left butt cheek with the bike on top of me.  Ouch! 

Luckily, my left foot popped out and I didn't hurt my ankle.  Unluckily, I feel like I need one of those inflatable donuts to sit on because it feels like I have a golf ball in my back pocket when I sit down. 

The only saving grace about this whole incident is that it happened on my driveway, rather than at a race.  It was about 7:45am so none of my neighbors were oustide to witness my ridiculous fall.  Also, it's good that it wasn't next week at the race where there are spectators and cameras all over the place.  I would hate to immortalize my first race with a picture of an injury to my...well, you understand.

60 Minute Swim

Got up early.  Went to the gym.  Swam a bunch of laps.  Came home to ride my bike before anyone else wakes up.

Pretty standard Saturday.

Round 4: Day 90 - Core Cardio and Balance

This is a lame Day 90 Picture...maybe we'll take some different shots later.

Round 4 Complete!

We finished our 4th 90 day round this morning with a little Insanity Core Cardio and Balance.  It feels good to finish the round, but I can't take too much time to rest as I've got a race next week, and the one after.  We'll see if I decide to have a cheat meal this weekend to celebrate or save that for after my upcoming races.

As for what's next...hopefully we'll have something on that in the next day or two.  It'll probably be some low key maintenence for a few weeks so I can taper appropriately for my races, but we'll see.

Round 4: Day 89 - Core Synergistics

Core Syn again today. I got through the workout but I felt like I was horizontal more than I usually am during this workout...weird.

Round 4: Day 88 - X Stretch

This is called "Camel".  I don't know why.  I did drink a lot of water...

X-Stretch this morning.  It's easily the least demanding of our workouts, which is nice sometimes, but I usually finish the hour of stretching and feel like I haven't worked out.  Because I haven't.  That's fine every once in a while; and it was fine today.

40 Minute Bike Ride

The wind is a fickle mistress. 

On the first half of the ride I was cruising along, easily averaging over 21 or 22 mph (which is fast for me).  Of course, on the way back the 20 mph wind slowed me down something fierce. 

So that sucked.

Round 4: Day 87 - Fountain of Youth Yoga

Only 3 days left this round...clearly I'm praying to the P90X Gods to ensure my survival.

Work's been a little hectic lately.  Yesterday I was pretty sure I was going to Ohio today and Wedensday.  Then that got canceled yesterday afternoon.   About two hours after that got canceled I was scheduled to go to Los Angeles for Tuesday through Thursday.  This morning (before my flight, thankfully) that got canceled and it turns out I'm (likely) home all week. 

At any rate, a nice quiet session of yoga was a nice way to start the day.  It's weird though; I know during yoga I'm supposed to let the stress of life slip away and focus on positions and breathing and balance.  However, sometimes you focus on all the stress and other stuff in your life and almost forget that you're sweating bullets and you're not sure how you got into the twisted position you're in. 

Today was one of those days.

Round 4: Day 86 - Core Synergistics

Nothing like a nice full body workout to get your day going.  I'll admit, I was a little fatigued this morning but I still got a good workout.  Apparently my fatigue was a little too apparent to Mrs. Gias.

There's a move called loading docks where you take a weight from the floor on one side of your body to up above your head on the other side (as seen in the photo above).  I used a 10 pound weight today and had a good range of motion, but admittedly it was a little light for me.  Mrs. Gias also used a 10 pound weight today.

And she let me know about it. 

Repeatedly.

12 Mile Bike

This was easily the best biking session I've had.

I didn't have much time so I went out for a quick 40 minute ride.  I'd been really starting to worry that my biking was going to be super slow and losing a lot of confidence in how I would do in my upcoming races.  Today I told myself that I was going to go as close to all out as I could for as long as I could to see what would happen.  I think my problem in the past was I didn't know what level of exertion was necesary for a solid bike leg, so I just putzed along and ended with times that were waaaay too slow.

Today I pedaled strong, got out of the saddle, whatever I had to do to keep my cadence and my speed up.  I ended up increasing my average speed by a few miles per hour and while I was more tired, it was still managable.  In other words, today was a great confidence booster on speed.

No, I'm not going to be a front of pack biker in these first few races, probably not even a strong middle of the packer, but I have confidence that I can keep up and work hard enough to continue to improve.  I just wish I'd discovered this "ah-ha" moment a few months ago so I could have been practicing more efficiently.  It's OK, I'm a total novice at this so I'll just roll with it and keep getting better.  I can't wait to get back out on the bike.

Round 4: Day 85 - Insanity Core Cardio and Balance

We're into the home stretch on this 90 day round and we just started our last recovery week.  Core Cardio and Balance is a good recovery week workout because it's not too challenging, but it gets a bit of sweat going to let you know you're working out.  However, at the end, it kind of kicks you in the butt with a bunch of burnout moves, first on your hip-flexors and then in your shoulders.  It's a bit uncomfortable and I really can't figure out what good it's doing me fitness-wise, but we do the moves anyway.

During the shoulder burnout Mrs. Gias's arms and mine got a little bit close.  It should be known that Mrs. Gias does not like...let me restate...hates...being touched, even brushed lightly, while working out.  Well, I have long arms and apparently they got a bit close to Mrs. Gias.  It was early so her english wasn't quite top notch, but she said pretty clearly,

"I don't even want that near me not even a little bit at all."

Well, at least that was clear.

60 Minute Swim

I had a session with my swim coach today.  It was a good session, she really didn't have any critiques of my technique that were negative, which is pretty cool.  Since my technique and form are going pretty well, we worked on two modifications to my stroke to try to gain more speed.

The first change is to increase the cadence on my kick from my current 4 beat kick to more like a 6-8 beat kick.  Second change was to try a new breathing technique called three-two breathing.  Yeah, I got bored just writing those sentences, sorry. (If you really want to know more about either of these things, leave a comment and I'll let you know...what nobody?  That's a surprise...)

I guess the main point here is that I have used all the coaching sessions that I've paid for and I'm not sure I need anymore.  I got three so that I could have my stroke broken down, fixed and I could get faster.  Now that my stroke seems to be in good shape and my speed is pretty good (although you can always go faster) I think I just need to keep working.  I'll reassess after a few races and see what I really need to work on (newsflash - it's the bike and running).