My 2011 Race Season is Finally Here!

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  The weather here in Atlanta was great, and evidenced by the numerous people out and about trying to escape the cabin fever that was this past winter.  I did just over 10 miles on Saturday for my last long run before the Publix Georgia Half Marathon this coming weekend, and then on Sunday I did a bit over 26 miles on the new bike (Silver Comet Trail).  I need to figure out a way to get my RunningAhead Training Log to post to my Facebook page.  Anyone know how to do that?  I am gonna eventually have my training log on one of the static page links at the top of my blog.  Speaking of which.... I guess you guys/gals have seen my new blog static pages that I have started :)  Still slower than I would have liked, but that is also due to grad school (stupid grad school!!!!)

The "About Me" page has the ABC's of me listed, so if you want to jump on that bandwagon just click on the link and read (there is also a Fresh Prince of Bel Air reference at the top of the page).

 

Speaking of the Publix Georgia Half Marathon, Wes giving a lot of smack talk, at least is backing it up by kickin my ass this weekend ;)  Here's to your PR buddy!  Also my friend Tommy will be in the event as well, as he graciously has taken his sister's race number since she will not be able to participate in the event this year.  Kinda want to drive the course again to see where all the elevation changes are.  I might do that on Saturday when the traffic is not bad.  Actually, now that I am looking at the course map online, I might not need to.  I know where all the elevation gains are at. 

So I have to take my girlfriend into the shop (most likely tomorrow) for her new ride tune up.  Of course all wrench heads will tell you after you get that new bike that after you ride it some, the cables will loosen/tighten, etc and you will need to bring it in one more time to make sure that it gets really dialed in to where it needs to be.  Well that happened to me over the weekend.  at 1/2 way through the ride, I could no longer go into the large chain ring.  Not only that, but when I stopped and physically moved it up to the new chain ring, it moved itself back down as to say, "nope, have fun with this one all the way home." As for the rear cassette, I am having shifting issues through the middle of the cassette, which should just be an adjustment issue.  The other problem is about 4 miles from home, I see that the reverse bolt that holds everything together up front (crank arms, bottom bracket, chainrings, etc) is about to come completely out.  Also I screwed it in, but not tight enough because that is the one where you need to use a torque wrench, and I don't have a torque wrench.  No good.  Otherwise the ride was nice :)

The only other thing that I wanted to bring up was a USAT provision that I thought was a rule. Kinda peeved about it.  Here is the skinny!

There was a race I participated in last season (I will have to go back and check my notes) where I was trying to put in some fast times, especially in transition, so I decided that I would go back to the old school clipping your shoes onto your bike and setting that up for a fast T1.  I got there early and got everything set up, and left to use the restroom.  I heard my number getting called over the loudspeaker, and I went to my transition rack with a USAT referee there.  He stated that AG'ers were not allowed to have their shoes clipped in during T1.  I politely told him that I have actually read the rules and I do not remember this being listed anywhere.  He replied that this was the rule and if I did not comply I would be penalized for it.  At this point we have about 20 min till transition closes, and even though there was time, I was kinda pissed.  I have now done this about 6 times and I have never had that problem before.  So I fixed everything and then went on with my race.  For the rest of the season I repeated this process so as not to get in trouble. 

Recently I heard on the IMTalk podcast that john was talking about fast transitions and that a person had emailed in from the states that USAT does not allow AG'ers to put on shoes on their bikes for T1.  This got the blood boiling again, and so I actually went and read the rules yesterday.  Went through every damn page.  Guess what was NOT there!  ANY RULE PREVENTING AG'ers PUTTING SHOES ON THEIR BIKE FOR T1!  So I go onto the Facebook page of USATriathlon yesterday, and ask this question.  Their response...

"Hi Andy: this actually has never been a rule. In USAT-sanctioned events (unless the RD files for an exemption) you are allowed to attach your shoes to your bike if you wish."

I have asked a number of triathletes in the past, and there is an increasing number that say they have encountered this at races.  So either there are a lot more RD's filing exemptions, or the RD's are not wanting the risk of injury to an average AG'er trying to execute a mount and ride with their shoes on their bike.  So they just tell them they are not allowed to do it.  That is my guess.  And please note that I am not knocking the USAT, I just think that if there is OR is not a policy in place, that the officials need to adhere to that policy and if there are exemptions filed, then they need to have make that known in the race packet, pre-race meeting, and/or announcements before the race while people are in transition.  That's all I want, adherence and transparency.

USAT has gotten back to me before I finished this post and told me that the Commissioner of Officials will allow people to inquire about specific races to see if that race has any exemptions filed for it.  I thought that was very helpful to know!  Thanks USAT (more specifically whomever is in charge of their Facebook page)!!!

Have a good week, I will speak to y'all on Friday!

Race Week!

Hooray for race week!

I just re-upped my membership to USAT for 2010.  I guess that means I better be in at least 4 events this year.  Rev3 sent out their race packet info yesterday, and I have already poured through it.  I am planning on getting there early enough to do the group swim at 10am on Saturday morning (hopefully I will see Sarah!), then going to meet up with Mike and his fiance around 12pm.  Do one of the afternoon athlete meetings, pick up my race packet, drive the course, rack my bike, then screw around for the rest of the evening and enjoy being out of Atlanta for a change.  Hopefully I will get to see a bit of Wes as well outside of racing, but if not, I will be at the finish line waiting for him and Sarah!  Wes and Sarah are doing the half, while Mike and I are doing the Olympic distance.

The nerves and excitement of the first race of the year always get to me.  Not that I am nervous, I just have all this energy I need to direct somewhere.  I cannot believe it is already May.  I will sign up for the VA Highlands SummerFest 5K with Patsy next weekend when I get paid, and then it will be crunch time to sign up for some of the rest of my races for the remainder of the year.  Some of them now are selling out due to popularity, and it gets kinda frustrating for people trying to make ends meet, and pay for race fees without putting them on credit cards and the like.  Ironman was an exception, and I will never regret that, but some of these local races..... :)  Maybe I just need to find some new ones that are under the radar! 

As for the 5K  I am happy that I get to coach Patsy through her first 5K that she is going to run in.  She has done some before, but they were more just for participaing in, and she walked the entire course.  I told her that I would be running her pace throughout the entire event.  This is her race, not mine :)

Weekend workouts went great!  My favorite was the OWS at Lake Allatoona on Saturday morning.  Wes turned me onto it (it is orgainzed by the Concourse Tri Club in Atlanta).  I think there were around 20+ people that showed up and there was support (people in kayaks) and they were very focused on the buddy system, which I thought was pretty cool.  I did just under a mile (probably around 1500M) in just under 29 minutes... I am sure my wetsuit had something to do with that... now if I can just get it off in less than 7 minutes I will beat my only other olympic tri swim time when I did not wear a wetsuit.  Oh and did I mention that 3/4 of the swim in Knoxville is downstream?  Sweet.

I think I have may put down West Pointe on the schedule, but I might X that and then juggle my schedule around for the rest of the season.  I just have a lot of stuff going on right now outside of triathlon, and it is making things diffucult (don't people realize that triathlon is a priority, jusk kidding :).  Either that or I will just scale back and find a sprint that weekend rather than doing another olympic before Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon.

Got the speed laces on my Asics GT-2140's and I have run in my shoes barefoot, a little bit... I am going to get a few more barefoot runs in my shoes before the weekend so my feet are ready for the no socks on bike+no socks on run = janked up feet!!!!!  Probably practice taking off my wetsuit a few times, or make sure there is some COPIOUS amounts of lube on my ankles before the race.

Have any of you guys suffered from pre-race jitters on  your first race of the season?  Let me know!

Weekend Shenanigans and Athens Twilight Criterium

Hello Everyone!

I hope that everyone was able to enjoy a weekend of training as well as any other fun things you might have been able to accomplish over those two glorious days (wait, there is something other than training to do on the weekends???). 

The weekend started Friday evening with Patsy and I heading to a dual birthday party hosted by our friend.  We got there after everyone arrived from dinner.  This portion of the evening was to be the pre-party event before everyone headed to the highlands in Atlanta.  I told myself that I had to be at Mike's condo by 8am to pick him up and take us to lake Allatoona for our first OWS of the year.  Ha - side note - first tri of the year is in 12 days and I am trying to do my first OWS two weeks before the event.  Oh well who needs sighting anyways :) ?  Back to the story... We somehow got out of there by 12-12:30am when they finally caught their cabs.  People think I am lame and just don't understand why someone like me would want to wake up at 7am on a Saturday morning to go swim ;) 

Fast forward to the morning and it is storming... I was kinda pissed.  I will swim in the rain until the cows come home.  But lightning?  Heck no!  So Mike and I changed our plans and we hit up LA Fitness for an hour under his guidance (he is the better swimmer, swam in high school).  He wore me out, and then dropped me off, telling me he would be back to pick me up around 1pm so we could go to Athens.

Ahhh.... Athens.  Home of my Alma Mater.  We got there arond 2:30pm and checked into the hotel.  We had missed all the morning qualifying runs, but the main events began around 5:45pm, with the men's race beginning around 8:45-9:00p, so we were not too worried.  This just means an excuse to walk around downtown Athens and drink/eat bad food.  Also one of my fraternity brothers, Jay Lowe, and his band, Argus, were playing at Tasty World so we stopped by there for about half an hour to watch the band play before leaving and meeting up for dinner.  Dinner was at Doc Chey's.  Man that Siracha sauce is damn hot, but I love it!  The women't pro event was in its final laps as we finished dinner, so we then hit up one of the beer gardens outside to watch the finish of the race, and then get some primo standing room for the men's event. 

The men's pro event started a few minutes late, and the rain was beginning to pick up (for those of you who heard about tornadoes and such passing through Mississippi and Alabama on Friday night/Saturday morning, that hit Athens on Saturday night.  Definately rain, and some lightning, but the race must go on!  This is a 1km course in downtown Athens, and the field must complete 80 laps.  I don't know how many laps into the race the referee quit cutting people who were lapped, but by about 25 laps in, half the men's field had been cut out of the race!  It kept raining on and off (pretty heavily I might add) and so it was back and forth between the tent and the fence separating us from people riding 25mph+ on their bikes.  As the race got closer to the finish, we moved across the course and down to about 30-40 feet from the finish line.  The funny thing is that from my perception, the lead riders (6 in the lead group, had about 40 seconds on the pack by the end of the race) went faster on the bell lap than they did on the final lap.  Or maybe that was because 4 out of the 6 riders whizzed by my face (literally, 8-12 inches away).  All in all, good times.  Sunday was a rest day.

Rev3 is not an "A" race for me, so while I will tone down the training volume next week, there will really be no taper for this coming race, more of modifying my training so that there is a rest day or two before the event.  The week after will be a light week and then right back into training.  Patsy and I may do the VA Highlands 5K on June 5th, and then I have the Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July (10K).  Still have not signed up for the Chattahooche Waterfront Tri yet, but that is on my radar for July as well.  I really want to see how I do in Rev3, because I would like to qualify for Age Group Nationals at Myrtle Beach if I can.  After that it is Good Old Peachtree City Triathlon in August (an annual mandatory event since that was the first triathlon I have ever done), and then we shall see how the rest of the year pans out.... I am trying to get something together that will hopefully make the rest of this year and years to come pretty exciting!!!!  Will know soon (within the next month).

Anyways, this post spans two days (I was too lazy to finish yesterday), so I am going to close saying have a good rest of the week and I will find something else tri-related to blog about soon enough :)

Murtha...

Catching up!

Wow!

     You being to get motivated and things happen and then next thing you know is that almost two weeks have gone by and you have not posted a dang thing!  Oh well.  Here is my attempt at catching up.

I was not able to make it to the Friday evening event and mixer because I got off of work late and there was not way I was making it from the North side of Atlanta to Peachtree City by 7pm (and stopping @ my house).  I can barely make it there from my house in Atlanta on a weekend.  So I got up Saturday morning and got my swim gear ready and made it down to the 1pm swim clinic.  There were about 30+ people there, most of which were from the south side of Atlanta and/or on the Peachtree City Tri Club.  I met Anne, one of the members/officers of the Peachtree City Tri Club, and she got me set up, and it was into the pool for an 800M warmup.  Wait an 800M warmup???  Please remember that swimming is not my strong point in triathlons and I was never on a swim team, and I have never been formally coached.  My idea of a warmup is a couple laps down and back in the pool.  "Enough with the bitching already Andy!!!"  About that time Desiree Ficker and April Gellatly showed up (just coming from the previous bike clinic they were also hosting).  They ran the rest of the swim clinic.  There were so many of us there, while we were doing drills they would assist and give people tips on ways to improve their swim stroke.  I was able to speak with Desiree for a few minutes, and she helpee me with a big problem I was having with my swim stroke... It is still going to take some more practice to get rid of that bad habit completely, but I am working at it every swim workout.  After the practice was over, I went and spoke with both girls for a few minutes, thanked them both for coming out to help us, and then thanked Anne for hosting the event.  Next year I will make sure I get into work early/leave early so I have time for the event.  They had a pro male athlete last year (Chris Leito maybe???)  and I completely missed that event.  Kudos to whoever in the organization is able to get these big names out here.

In the training department, I am really ramping up my workouts/week, as well as getting all three disciplines involved again.  I am still shorting myself on the bike, but I am going to sit down and fix my flat rear tire that has been like that for a week now, and get that sucker hooked up to the trainer for some workouts this week.  Running is getting better.  My best workout for the week was a 50 min tempo run (on the dreadmill) where I began @ 5.5mph and negative split every quarter mile up to 1.25 miles, and then kept going every half mile after that till I was done (increase was .1mph, maxed out @ 6.7mph by the time 50 min was up)... by the time I was done, I was doing close to a 9:00/mi pace at the end of my run.  I decided against doing track workouts and instead focusing on negative split tempo workouts until the ING half has come and gone.  While track workouts also help in making you a faster runner, I am still logging early season base mileage (I know I am behind).

I need to decide in the next couple of weeks if I am going to do The Chattahooche Waterfront Tri or not, because it is going to determine whether or not one of my "A" races will be Rev3 Knoxville or the Chattahooche Waterfront Tri.  For those of you who live in the SE USAT District, the Chattahooche Waterfront Tri is the Regional Championship for qualifiying towards the AG Nationals in Tuscaloosa this year.  This means unlike some other regular qualifiers where only the top 10% get into AG Nationals, the top 33% in each AG qualify at the Regional Championship.  This would be a huge PR for me if I could qualify in my AG especially since I have moved up to the 30-34M group (I think I went from the 5th hardest AG to the 3rd hardest AG).  This would also be a huge PR for me at the olympic distance as well.  The last Oly I did was in 2008 (West Pointe Tri - Hosted by GA Multisport Productions), and I did not train properly for the event and finished just under three hours.  I looked at the times, and I think realistically I can come close, so why not at least try and see what happens.

Tomorrow I am going to try and get my weekly stats up on the site.  Wed I will post more and try to have a bit of news up on the site as well.  Have fun, be safe, and train hard!

I turned to the Dark (USAT) Side!!!

Ok,

So today I sat down and look at my potential schedule for my 3rd triathlon season, and saw how many races that I wanted to attempt to complete...

It's that $9 fee!!! The previous two years, I have only done just enough races for it to economically not make sense to sign up with the USAT. At this point in time, joining the USAT is only for economic reasons, up until the time that the organization actually has something to contribute, OR, I become a semi-pro/pro athlete where being in the points system to qualify for nationals and/or worlds would be worth it. If you look at my blog, I am planning to do 6 races, and possibly more. That would pay for my entry fee about 1.5 times in saving $9 per race.

Its Official!!! For the first time (and probably not the last) in my now 3rd season of being a triathlete, I am an official member of USA Triathlon. I am granted all the rights and responsibilities that come along with being a member of USAT.

More to follow.....