What the hell batman???......It was Superman's "Super Ride!"

Ok,

So there is a Tuesday night ride in Atlanta at the Cycleworks location in Sandy Springs. During the peak of summer you might see between 40-60 people, but it varies week by week. Please note that this is supposed to be a recovery ride, but obviously I am not good enough for it to be a recovery ride since I am always dropped at some point.

The ride begins at the Sandy Springs Cycleworks, and then goes south to Chastain, and then East across Roswell Road and over towards Brookhaven across 400. Then we go back North into the Sandy Springs Area, West on Glenridge, and go back South on Roswell Road to Mt. Paran Rd. This is about the halfway point, and by this time I am usually AT LEAST 5 minutes behind the front group (more like 10 sometimes). Then we go through this big maze around Mt. Paran, Powers Ferry, and other back roads near Holy Spirit Catholic Church, and then head back east to Chastain Park, loop around, and then head back north up to the Bike Shop to finish. This is around 25-26 miles total.

It seems lately that I have this barrier of 1 hour 40 minutes, and I just recently broke it last week at 1 hour 39 minutes. Well, boys and girls, getting off of work early and eating your Wheaties (wait I barely ever eat breakfast), must do something for me, since I rode it in 1 hour 32 minutes!!!!! I broke last week's time by 7 minutes!!! What in the hell is up with that? Not like I am complaining, but I am trying to figure out what in the hell I did differently today that I usually do. Hmmm lets see...

Went to bed late last night,
Woke up late this morning,
Did not eat Breakfast,
Ate Wendy's for lunch (but did have chicken sandwhich rather than burger, not that it helps),
Left work to go to a hearing,
came home early and had smoothie,
Did nothing but laundry and cleanup,
Drank about 25-30 oz of water before hand,
Went for my ride,
There you have it!!!!

The only thing I can think of is the smoothie/water combo = well hydrated and potassium levels were elevated, or balanced out the sodium that was the Wendy's fries! I also think that I focused more on spinning the hills out than I normally do, which is attempt to do some sort of Lance Armstrong/Jan Ulrich in the Pyrennes ride in a big gear up a big hill. Instead everytime I hit a sizeable hill, or was really tired on al hill, I just dropped to the small ring on the front and spun the hell out of it like I was in a spinning class. If I can just get some more endurance in with some longer rides on the weekends (need to find an actual group. If you know of one please let me know, as I usually ride by myself on the Sandy Springs Ride, and at the Silver Comet trail on the weekends.).

It seems like everyone knows someone at these rides, and by that I mean that they talk/ride with each other multiple times during the week, have done races together, on the same team, etc... Oh well, let me improve some more and we shall see.

That is all for tonight, I am going to hit a light dinner since it is late, and then got to bed.

Murtha...

2006 Gulf Coast Triathlon Race Results and Report

Well,

This one is out late, but if you look at the number of postings on my normal blog in the past 6 months, you will understand why this hit so late.


This is my second triathlon that I have completed thus far in my brief triathlon career, and it went from a Sprint Distance for the first one (total of about 16 miles), to this one, which is a "Half Ironman" (although not an "Ironman sanctioned event") with the distance of about 70.3 miles. I will note that I was originally training for the Olympic distance tri in Hiawasee, GA, and then my manager Charlie convinced me to do this one on short notice, by fronting half my entry fee. Thank you Regions Bank!!! Let us look at the results, shall we?


1.2 Mile Swim: 49 minutes, 1 second (763/853)
Transition 1: 5 minutes, 40 seconds (638/853)
56 Mile Bike: 3 hours, 9 minutes, 19 seconds (732/853)
Transition 2: 4 minutes, 47 seconds (686/853)
13.1 Mile Run: 3 hours, 17 minutes, 9 seconds (793/853)

Total Time: 7 hours, 25 minutes, 55 seconds (786/853)

I might edit this later with the age group results, rather than the overall men's results, but they are really f(*&'ing hard to read! If you go to the website, they have them listed in a non-table format that is damn near impossible to figure out.

Report:

Friday
Jackie and I arrive Friday around 11:30am CST, after getting up and leaving by 6:30am EST. Drive was really good. When we arrived, we drove the complete wrong way for miles before we came back to where we needed to be (no thanks to the ladies at the gas station who live in panama city, and had no clue where the Boardwalk Beach Resort was in relation to their place of work, about 1/2 mile away.). While we were driving, I saw many people running and biking long distances the day before the event. I was kind of intimidated by this, since I tapered as well as I could under the training circumstances, and I did nothing on Thursday, and was not planning to do anything on Friday. We were going to stay city side, but for $20 more the entire weekend, we could have a beachfront room and the resort where the event was being held! So we changed hotels that day! Sweeeeet!!! We went to the beach that afternoon, Jackie laid out and I got in the water and swam about 500 meters total. I hate seaweed. It got everywhere, and I mean everywhere! The water was really rough near shore, and I hoped it would not be that way the entire race. We went to the Expo and then to the free race dinner ($10 for her ticket), and carb loaded like crazy! Went to the room afterwards, and then was in bed by about 10:00pm.

Saturday
I was awake and asleep during the morning about 3 times, but I do not think it affected me much, it was more jitters than anything. Got up at 5:00am, had power bar, apple, amino vital and gatorade. I took a shower (god knows why, after what I was about to do), and then proceeded to put my tri clothes on and leave. Got to transition around 6:00am, and got my stuff just the way I wanted it. I brought my bike pump, and it got more work from everyone else in the area than it did from me! 6:30 rolls around and they closed transition. Then it hit me..... I guess my body felt it needed to proceed with the "Morning Constitution" before I spent the day on the race, but everywhere there was a line. I sprinted back to the room, and banged on the door till Jackie came out. She stated that she could not use the bathroom until about 11:00am, but I do not believe her (ha ha ha). I started just before 7:00am

Swim
After getting out past the sandbar, the swim was easier than I thought. I was gunning to break 1 hour, even though my training in the pool kept me at about 45-50 minutes. I paced myself, and did really well at not zig zagging through the course. With about 600yds to go, I thought I saw a baracuda below me about 10 feet, so I hauled butt for about a 100yds, and then slowed down until I hit beach. Time 49 minutes, 1 second.

Transition 1
Ok Ok, I know, 5 minutes and 40 seconds. No I was not going to the bathroom. The beach was about 150 yards from my personal transition area total, and I made the mistake of drying more than just my lower legs off for my shoes and socks. I have still not been able to get that shoes on the bike thing yet, but I am getting faster with everything else. I was also looking to pace myself, and considering how long it took me to finish this race, and extra 2:30 on T1 was not going to make a whole lot of difference.

Bike
I had been working on the bike the most before this event, and I had been able to get sub 3 hours at the Silver Comet trail in Atlanta, for 56 miles, but that was with doing no brick workouts or anything with that at all. I came in at 3 hours, 19 minutes, 9 seconds. The first 10-15 miles were nice, as you went through the Panama City Drag, and then turned north on some highway. At around mile 16 I noticed that my chip was about to fall off, so I stopped for about a minute to put it back on, cursing myself all the way. Around Mile 17 or 18 I saw the 1st place men's finisher riding his bike back the other way. Then there was this huge bridge!!!! No problem, I just stayed in the gear I was and muscled over it. from Mile 20-35 I would like to name this area suckville, as the roads they had us riding on were horrible. I think it did slow me down a bit, as well as make me miserable since my butt was killing me by know, I don't know why (probably ususally not wet when I ride that long in Atl). At this point I was beginning to slow down and pace myself, since I knew I did not really incorporate any bricks in yet this season, so I was not going to be a happy camper when the run came. I was a nice guy and held my water bottle for the last 6 miles that was given to me since I wanted to keep the city clean.

Transition 2
Transition 2 was kind of the same idea as T1, so I clocked it in at 4 minutes and 47 seconds. It would have been closer to 4:30 if I would not have forgotten to take my helmet off. I also used the bathroom as well, so that accounted for 30-45 seconds of time. And we are off to the foot races!!!!!

Run
This was the bane of my existence. From mile 1 to 13.1, I always had some cramp, stitch, something that was holding me back. At around Mile 1, the women's second place overall finisher passed me going the other way. I could only swing my legs no further than a foot in front of me! I dealt with it until about Mile 6 (the loop in St. Andrews state park), and then it really fell apart. I did a combination of jogging and walking, and the closer I got to the finish, the longer my walks were. I ended up with a 3 hour, 17 minute, and 9 second run. If i did not have any of the other events, I could probably finish the half marathon in 1:40 to 1:50.

Finish
By this time I was completely cramped but I ran to the finish anyways, passing the Atlanta Chapter of Team In Training! When I got there I wanted to collapse, and there was an overwhelming sense to cry for some reason, but I did not. I was real quiet, and the volunteers as well as Jackie thought that something was going on. I was tired that is what the problem was!

Saturday Night
We partied at Spinnakers with free BBQ and free Beer for a few hours and then went to bed. I developed a slight case of plantar fascitis after the event, but it subsided after about two weeks. I dropped 7 pounds during the race and weighed about 168 after the race was over. I have gained most of it back by now.

I would like to be able to get into the 5 hour 30 minute range next year if at all possible. I do think the main thing that I want to do is aerobars and a heart rate monitor, and this before anything else (besides shoes and stuff of course).

I also need to work on the run, focusing on the brick workouts. I can run all day long, but after getting off of the bike, it is really damn hard! I also need to work on my swim. Some of the fastest people completed in 22-24min, and i was just over double that.

Any comments or advice would be great! I am planning do to this race again next year, hopefully with Regions Bank sponsoring me again, and this time I will hopefully be wearing some of their gear.

Murtha...

Funny Story (and sick), but it's real!!!

I found this on a posting from someone's race report the other day. I had heard rumors that people did this while racing (pro atheletes and podium age groupers), but I have never seen or heard about it until now.

I liked how he delivered the report with the theme, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

The real interesting snippit of this entire race report (this is just towards the end, not the whole report), is that the person who helps the man experience this gross and funny event during the triathlon does not even have a podium or top overall finish. So there is really no reason for her to do this anyways. You will understand what I am talking about when you read below.

Enjoy,

Murtha...


:: The Ugly ::

Alright, I know I’m a pretty slow dude. I have aspirations of greatness and I’m pretty vocal about it when I’m not riding. But when I’m riding I’m really a quiet guy. In fact, I’m usually in my own world. It gives me pause to consider things like that whole 2-3 bike length gap rule between riders. And now after this race, I have a completely different perspective on that rule. I’m now of the opinion that the 2-3 should be changed to 4-6.

In front of me was this hot chick.
In back of me, nobody.
In front of her, nobody.
She looks to the left.
I look to the left.
She looks to the right.
I look to the right.
She stands up.
I scratch my head.
She empties bladder.
I shriek in terror.

2-3 bike lengths my ass…

New Blog, New Subject!

Hello Everyone,

I thought that I would post some of my other hobbies and such on my original blog, http://jamurtha80.blogspot.com, but there was one subject that I thought pertinent to place on its own blog.

I would first like to thank Sheila, who if it was not for her blog, I would have never come up with creating a tri blog of my own. After reading hers and some others listed across the internet, I became inspired. I feel that this will help me not only put my tri thoughts, training, results, etc, on (electronic) paper, but people will be able to see what I do, and can comment, praise, criticize, and assist me in furthering this part of my life.

So, here we go.

Murtha...