Rocked and Rolled

Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon -

What a great event! The support was the best in any race I've been in, by far. Not to say it's always bad, not at all, just that the support of the race yesterday was way over the top - in a good way...

Each water station, lining both sides of the road, had a minimum of about 40-50 volunteers. Some had 100's, mind blowing as you ran by a sea of hands handing out water and CytoMax for what seemed like a full block. Very cool.

The day was clear skies and expected to reach mid 70's - great for pictures, maybe not so much for running. It was amazing to see the sea of humanity stretched out before and behind as far as you could see. Most races have about 5000 runners both 1/2 and full combined, yesterdays had 25,000 combined. It's surprising when you see a familiar face, or even a few in the sea of people.

The day went well until mile 22, then the pain of my IT Ban started to really effect my stride and I slowed from about 8:20 minute miles to about 9:45 and having to walk about 4-5 times to let my right leg stretch out. The goal for yesterday was to finish of course, but was also not to stop moving forward, so no standing or leaning to rest. However, I felt I had plenty of energy and mental focus to stay running in the mean miles (23-26), I just had a blowout that made it physically impossible to stay running the whole time.

If I was a car it would be like both front and back tires on the right side had flats, I still had half a tank and the engine was fine, but I had to bring it in slow.

On the route I did get to see Lynn and Jaime at the turn around on 99, which was great! I can't ever say enough about what a boost emotionally seeing someone you care for show up and cheer for you. You can carry and have a lift for the rest of the race if you see someone for even 15 seconds on the course as you run by. Amazing...

Shell and Lil' K were out there as well supporting Alley, Tony and I. The three of us after 7 odd years of running finally running the same Marathon together, crazy! Alley had a great day despite falling down some stairs two days before and hurting her back and Tony finished strong having to work through some cramps late in the race.

Overall a pretty sweet day, got home had a 3 hours nap, picked up pizza and movie and crashed early. Not bad for a full days work...

Once again, back at it....

OK, I've been away for a few - sort of recharging the batteries and seeing what's up for this next year. As always, it seems too early to start training, then too late and you feel behind.

Well this year I'm focusing on the Lake Stevens 70.3, my first of that distance. I think the only others right now I want to say for sure are Federal Way Oly, Seafair Tri and Kirkland. Issaquah may be in there as well, but I need to focus on longer pacing not sprint. Don't get me wrong I'll probably get that first Issaquah in there to calm the racing nerves.

I want to avoid late season burnout that leads to fall-winter stalemate. I love the work and the training and the races, although sometiimes the races are the icing on the cake.

The other thing I want t do this year is race a few TT on the bike. The ones in Carnation should be a lot of fun and a great learning curve for pace and endurance. I was getting excited about the TT when I was re-fitting my aero bars on Luke. I ended up moving them back 3 full inches. I can't believe I was all superman style last year : )

Well, in about 3 weeks training for the Rock and Roll Seattle Marathon starts and I'm looking forward to really getting behind a good training schedule and knocking that down.

Alley as well said she wants to look at PR'ing at RNR. I think that means she's all in for the 26.2. Plus training usually means getting together with Team Cannoli from across the water so that's always fun.....

I think the later start on training is fine this year, mostly cuz there's nothing you can do about losing the last 2 months anyways, but still. The only concern is getting my swim back to where I was last year, if I can focus the next 6 weeks to swim I think the rest will fall into place. Falling in place meaning kicking my ass back into shape : )

What’s 2 miles.....

This last weekend Eileen, TK and I signed up for and rode the Cougar Mountain Bike Climb 4 Cancer. It was a free Time Trial style race up 2 miles of 7.2% grade out in Issaquah with donations going to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

It was pouring down when we got there, not just raining, but coming down hard. Having a wet suit on wouldn’t have been out of the question.

I arrived with AK and Eileen expecting a hour wait or more, but when we went to check in we were told ‘since it’s raining we want to get people out and up as soon as possible. Your Number 8 and 9’.

WHAT!

So instead of the hour or so we were thinking, we had about 25 minutes. 25 minutes to get our bikes warm up and find some place to whiz. Always a plus.

The good news was it didn’t give us enough time to start freaking out about what we were about to put our bodies through. TK showed up right after and AK, Lil’ K and Shell headed off to the top in the car to cheer us on the last bit.

I was first and told Eileen,’ if you pass me I’m grabbing your seat and you’re going to have to pull me up.’

I started out fast and figured I’d cool it down and get my legs under me and find a good rhythm to move along with. However, after the first two minutes there was really no time to play catch up. The road kept climbing one turn after another. I spotted the rider that went before me and caught him a bit before the hardest turn, about 3/4 of a mile in. I past him, then two other people before the half.

Team support.

There’s something odd about a group of people supporting a person that’s destroying themselves. I heard a car coming up behind me and heard AK yelling out the window. My first thought was ‘ Tell Shell to run me over ‘, I think a second before I heard them I was starting to lose focus and concentrate too much on the pain, almost panicking I guess. Hearing them yelling as they drove by brought back the main things I always focus on during stressful periods: Pace, Form, Breathing



Pace: Is this pace sustainable? Yes/No - Stay or find it.
Form: Is everything from legs to head functioning and set for the right motion?
Breathing: Steady, control the rhythm, I control cadence.

I look to these three things constantly in a race and hard training workouts. Having asthma, I feel that this helps me keep away from the attacks I use to get when I would just go full out on everything, usually with the worst results.

As my team car went by I got pasted by this guy with Snooze Junction stickers on his bike, I recognized him from meeting him a few months before. My thought was ‘GREAT, now everyone’s going to start passing me now!’ I tried to match his pace, but within about 20 seconds of staying on him I knew I’d never make the top if I continued.

So I raised my pace a bit and braced for the rest to start passing. I could see that up ahead was a good size downhill, about 100 yds or so, then a small flat piece that lead to the final climb. A real nasty little sharp hill, I figured I’d throw 100% on the downhill, coast the flat, then let the momentum eat off the first 1/3 of the hill before I had to do any real work.

End the end it felt like that worked, about half way up I lost all steam in my legs and was just going on lunging back and forth on the pedals. I could hear Team Cannoli yelling and screaming and I knew the end was close and was very thankful that it was. The guy that pasted me ended up coming in 4th, wow, and I never got pasted by anyone else.



This pic of me and Luke was less than five feet after the finish line.



Eileen, after she finished actually even talked to me, I think one of the first things she said was," How bout something flat next time Bill!"

TK had a good strong finish, with about four riders at the bottom of the last hill around him he muscled it pass three of them before hitting the finish.

The race of truth is what time trials are called and I guess that goes double for uphill races, there's nowhere to hide or pause. I enjoy pushing and pushing and pushing and I don't lose sight of the fact that I do actually enjoy swimming, biking and running. Separate or all together in one day.

Thanks to Eileen and TK for joining and of course to AK, Shell and Lil'K for cheering in the pouring rain.

“AND WE’RE OFF!”

2008 season is on it’s way and what a great morning for it to start out on! Blue skies and calm winds set the tone for a fast quick race. AK and I woke at 4:45 and had wheels up at 5:45, still not sure why this race needs to be so early?



After two and a half weeks of being sick and not feeling great, race morning I was feeling much better at about 90%. I could maintain effort, but I couldn’t push the tempo like I would of liked. First in the swim I went to pass three swimmers at about the half way mark and I choose to stay at pace and wait for the last turn. After the last turn I hit a burst of speed for about 1 good minute. Enough to get out of and around the crowd there.

T1 was OK, I tried “shoes mounted on the bike” technique. I never actually practiced it, but I kept running it over and over in my head and it went pretty well. The only flaw was my feet were totally frozen and I couldn’t feel where I was cramming my foot. So whatever advantage I had I lost because I could tell what my foot was doing.

The bike was GREAT! I averaged 20.8 mile per hour, again on the bike like the swim I held back a few times, only on the down hills. Instead of stomping all the way down the hills I would push up and over, get to speed then coast to give the legs some recovery. Not training for two weeks I didn’t feel like I had much in the bank for MAX effort, had I been 100% I would of worked the crap out of the down hills : )

T2 was OK, same issues of not feeling my feet. Had my right foot in my shoe, but pulled it back out because it felt like I had gloves or something in it. Then took off about 4 steps away and realized I forgot my Forerunner, Duh!!


When I hit the run I was feeling great, but I knew the course was hot and humid so I kept my enthusiasm in check and ran at a comfortable pace. At about 3-4 minutes in I felt my run legs kick in and just kept telling myself “early morning training run”, “smooth, easy, breath”. I kept an eye on my Forerunner and it kept telling me 6:55 - 7:05 pace! OK, I have my legs under me and I keep thinking’ run down the rabbit’s’???


Starting in the 9 wave I had a lot of people on the course in front of me, more than I’m use to. In the last two seasons I’ve always been wave 2 or 4. I just kept thinking ‘catch that group and find the next’. Also, from running the course the last 2 years I knew I had a tendency to slow up in the turns because you can’t see around the tall grass, but forced myself to maintain speed around corners hoping they would open up, and they did : )

I had one last guy in front of me before the finish line and wanted to kick past him in the last 35-40 yards, but he took off and I tried to go with, but could only maintain and finished steady. I’ve noticed that in foot races I can kick the last 40 yards or so with a big burst, but in tri’s I can only maintain a hard steady pace. OH,WELL!!! I still totally rocked the run with a 19:03 finish!!!
So overall a great start to the season and I wanted to thank Lynn, Jamie, Shell, Lil’ K and Penny for waking up early and hauling their cookies out to Issaquah and cheering us on. Also, of course to AK for support and bringing the Pringles : )

Out there on the course as well was TK, keeping it real and placing in the Top 100 in just his second triathlon!!! Taking minutes off of his first .25 swim and running out of the water! Congratulations on a strong showing.........

Enough already with being sick......

Still a little off, with a great cough lasting about a week now. AK has an even worse cough and Penny is bouncing back from her little down turn.

However, no time to be sick, still have to get training in. Last week I was suppose to hit 10 hours, but being sick for the most part I only got to about 7:30. AK said something funny after our run at the Disco last Sunday, mind you we were both sick for about two days at that point. She said " I feel a little better today, not 100%, but I think I turned the corner on being sick" I thought it was funny because she just finished a 4 mile run talking about maybe feeling better about being sick. AK's HARD CORE!!!

This past week Team Cannoli got together for some swim, bike and run training. Shell, TK and I actually swam with the fishes??? We jumped in Green Lake for a pretty good swim and a good reminder of how little pool training relates to open water swim. We all faired pretty well and had about 6-8 2 foot fish swimming around us from time to time.

After we got out TK and AK hit a few laps around the lake with Lil' K following on her bike. While Shell and I biked over to jump on the Mag loop then out to Golden Gardens, before heading up 34th and tackling the Blue Ridge route home. Shell was a good sport and really hung in there on a course she'd never been on before. And what a great day weather wise!!!

OK, have to finish up and go make coffee for the morning.........

This past week, back at it....

Last Sunday I hit the day with a good steady swim and a smaller hilly bike ride. After Saturdays longer brick I thought I felt good enough for a smaller one on Sunday. This week I felt good health wise and inshape wise. Hour goal for the week was 7 hours and I knew I could hit that, but I couldn’t get lazy!!! Schedule had me at 3 doubles this week with a long bike on Saturday. I was looking forward to getting to my Friday day off from training. Mostly glad this week for getting my swimming back on track with hitting 2.21 miles for the week. Also, yesterdays bike ride.

About yesterdays bike ride, I just have to say, I love my bike George. I’ve been having some issues with getting a new race bike for this years races and that will be one entry when it finally gets resolved. However, for all the full carbon bikes and compacts and this and that for the new bikes that I’ve been trying, nothing has felt as good as my ol’ George ,1200 Trek w/ an aluminum frame. I went out yesterday and hit the hills hard! Going from the house up to Blue Ridge and over Crown Hill down to Golden Gardens then out to Fremont and across the Fremont Bridge to the SPU college and straight up Queen Anne then around to Dravus ave. and out over to do a loop around the Mag to the Disco. Back down from the Disco to the downtown area of Magnolia and finally back up to the Disco. Were I met AK and Penny for a quick walk with the Penster after she did a lap at the Disco with AK.
Here's a pic of Penny taking in the views of Discovery...

All in all a great ride!! George handled the hills fine and what great weather!!!
I’d like to thank Team Cannoli for helping Eileen out Saturday when she was lost on her bike ride in their neck of the woods. She called and my phone was dying, but I got a call out in time to TK and Shell to help her out. Thanks!

Week Totals…..

3 Swim - 2.21 miles for 1:32 hours
3 Bike – 41.5 miles for 2:40 hours
2 Run – 8.4 miles for 1:20 hours
2 Other for 1:28 hours

10 workouts for 7:01 hours - Hit goal hours for the week"Sweet"

AK
5 runs for 22 miles

Penny – ruff
4 runs for 10 miles – WOW! She has more miles than me!!! – but she does have four legs??!!??

Better late than never....

So I left my computer cord and the 21st century at work this weekend. I was computer free from Friday until Monday, it’s amazing how much day to day is connected to this little slim silver box : ) I didn’t even know what my training schedule held for me Sunday and Monday.

This last weekend a member of Team Cannoli, TK ran in the Austin Marathon
TK 3:19:14 312 overall.

And qualified again for Boston!!! Great work out there TK.

Running over the years has always been about setting personal goals and achieving things I thought were just out of reach. I don’t run or do triathlons to directly compete with anyone, mostly cause I feel like I’m too new to either sport to do that, but mostly because that’s not the overall goal. If I PR or compete and have my best possible day, that’s the goal.
I PR’d at Victoria in the half marathon a few years ago and it was at the time the best race I’d ever run. Steady at the start, strong at the turn around and picking up speed for the last 2 miles. Finished the last mile in under 7 minutes. I could feel the training and the hard work pay off as I crossed the line, it was amazing. That’s the goal for myself. I’ve also PR’d and been disappointed with myself. In the Run for the Pies a few years ago I did a Personal Best, but walked once and felt out of shape. I was upset with myself because I didn’t compete and have my best day possible, even though I PR’d, I felt like I let myself down and had no respect for the race distance that day.
I guess I was wrapping this around to say that if I didn’t know TK or someone like TK , I wouldn’t know or have known how far I could of pushed myself all these years. It’s fun to try to keep pace with someone either mentally or on the road that is as capable TK.
Here's TK finishing up at Beaver Lake Tri - his first


Again good work out there in Austin…..


Last weeks totals

2 Swim – 1.61 miles, 1:01 hrs - great swims 40 and 41 laps
1 Bike - 21.5 miles, 1:31 hrs
2 Runs - 9.8 miles, 1:27 hrs
2 Others – 1:28 hrs
7 workouts 5:20 minutes total

Just short of 5.5 that I wanted from the week. However, I was sick with a small fever for 2 days and a stomach thing for 2 days so I’m pretty happy with that.

AK Totals

5 Runs – 20 miles – totally rocking the run again!!!!
7 Core – 2:10 hrs

Next weeks goal is 6.5 hrs it’s already Tuesday and I only have 1:30 so I better get going…..

Team Cannoli at Nookachamps

With ribbons in hand, Team Cannoli walks away with two podium finishes from Saturdays Nookachamps race. AK and Lil'K showed up not just to watch the swans, but to throw the hammer down..... grr arg