Tri the Illini

This weekend I learned whether running a sprint triathlon after three weeks of minimal training and directly following a 21-hour trip home from Europe a good idea. Turns out no...

... it's a great idea! When I got home Saturday night, I was seriously considering not showing up for Tri the Illini the next morning and just eat the loss of the registration fee. I felt exhausted and I could barely stand. I decided to set my alarm clock and see how I was feeling in the morning, and by the time 5:30 rolled around, things were looking much better.

Having done no set up the night before, I had to pack my transition bag, locating all the necessities, pump up my bike tires and install the bike rack on the car. Also shower, have coffee, and eat breakfast. I managed to finish all of this around 6:45 and made the short drive over to the triathlon. It's so nice not having to travel for a race!

The place was abuzz, with triathletes streaming in to register and set up transition. I picked up my bib (#480—a 5-smooth number, must be lucky!) and chip and headed back to transition. One thing I noticed is that there was a greater variety of bikes present. At the Chicago triathlon, it seemed like 90% of all bikes were tri bikes, and almost all of them were at least road bikes. Here, I saw quite a number of hybrids and mountain bikes.

On the way to transition I ran into a student from my class, who was surprised to see me in the race. Turns out this was only his second triathlon, but he had biked 1500 miles over the summer, so he was likely in pretty good shape. He asked me if swimming was my forte, so I had to explain to him that I suck in all three of the sports, but running is where I suck the least.

The Swim

The swim was in the same outdoor pool where I had done all my laps over the summer, so I figured I'd have a home field advantage. The trouble, however, was that the temperature was in the low 40's, so as we all piled out onto the deck in our swimsuits for the pre-race briefing, everyone was freezing. Thankfully, they kept things brief and then they had people come out in groups of 50 while everyone else could wait inside. People were sorted by number, so I had quite a wait to start and made periodic use of the nearby sauna to keep warm.

The course was a 300m snake swim through the pool. They had a time-trial start, with people jumping in every 5 seconds or so, but this obviously didn't do all that much to alleviate traffic. Most of the people were faster swimmers than I, but there was enough people moving slowly that I had to somehow dodge around everyone to make progress. I also started out going too fast and got tired out, so with all of this, I was nowhere near maintaining good form, but I trudged along and made it out of the pool.

Final time: 8:35, or 2:52/100m, though this time includes the run up from the pool to transition area.

T1 was uneventful at 3:26. I'm sure with practice I can shave at least a minute off this time.

The Bike

After the first mile on the bike, I glanced down at my phone and saw that my average speed was over 20mph! Of course, this was due to the course starting on a slight downhill slope and I quickly saw that number drop, but I was still pleased with how fast I was going. I was also passing a number of people! In Chicago, I would pass maybe one person for every 20 who passed me, but here things were looking much better.

One thing that was amazing about this race was the volunteers. Apparently they had a record number of people show up, and they were doing a great job giving directions at every intersection, but also enthusiastically cheering everyone on. It was great to get that energy boost on the bike course, where there are normally few spectators.

The course ended with a short climb up Yankee Ridge, followed by a quick descent to the turnaround point. Of course, this is Illinois, so the steepest it got was around a 3% grade. I had averaged 17.5mph on the out portion, which was great, but I was pretty sure that couldn't last. I was also confused that the out distance was over 7 miles; turns out the bike course was 14.5 miles, rather than the standard 12.5.

The return trip was significantly slower, which I can only attribute to my feeling more tired, since the elevation profile wasn't significantly worse and there didn't seem to be much wind, either. I just kept on trying to pass the occasional person while making sure that I didn't push my legs too much. The final person in my sights was hardest to catch and I was only able to pass her right before the dismount line. Probably pointless from the point of view of race strategy, but it made me feel better.

Final time: 54:28.2, or 15.9mph. I was really hoping to break 16mph on the bike but it was not in the cards.

T2 was slower than it should have been, at 1:14, since I was already wearing my running shoes, so all I had to do was drop off my bike and go. Well, turns out that I needed to drop off my bike and helmet, and I forgot about that last part, nearly starting the run with my helmet on.

The Run

I was hoping to run at least a 10-minute mile, but 9:30 was much better. I was happy to see numbers between 9 and 9:30 on my iPhone. My legs felt a little tired, but not too bad. The worst problem was some side splits that weren't going away. I tried to regulate my breathing, then slowed to a walk for the first aid station, but no luck. Oh well, it was only painful enough to be annoying.

About one mile in, I realized with surprise that I was feeling great other than the splits. I couldn't remember feeling this good during a race! I mean, yes, I had to push myself to maintain a steady effort, but it didn't feel painful and I had plenty of motivation to keep going. I was having a great time, smiling, thanking all the volunteers, and cheering on the people I was passing. I'm always a little unsure about whether doing this is a good idea; part of me worries that if someone's struggling, having someone cheerful pass you might make you feel even worse. But the people who passed me did cheer me on, so I figured it couldn't be that taboo.

I did walk through each aid station, even though I probably could have easily covered the whole distance without stopping at all, but the breaks made me feel refreshed and I kept hoping they would calm my side splits. After the last station, I started gradually picking up the pace, gradually speeding up to about an 8-minute mile, and then kicking it in at the end. I saw Lenore with the twins and my mother at the finish, waved to them, then ran through the timing mats.

I was pretty excited to see my average speed listed at 9:12 on my phone. But turns out it once again underestimated my speed and I actually finished the 3.1 mile run in 27:57, which is a 9-minute mile and a 5K PR!

Conclusion

We hung around for a little bit. Unlike past races, I didn't feel the need to lie down and actually held the twins for a while before having to put them down. We shared a little bit of post-race food, though I couldn't find very much to drink. Eventually we decided to go out for brunch, but encountered a super-long wait at Le Peep and decided to bail for home.

I keep wondering why this race felt so much better. I'm starting to think it must be the cool weather: I know for sure that I massively overheated in the Lytle Park Triathlon, and in Chicago it was still fairly warm, despite the rain. But here the weather was perfect; I've also noticed in my runs done since the race that I can generally run faster and feel better than in the summer. Maybe I should concentrate more of my racing in these cooler months and sit them out in the summer...

Anyway, I'm very happy with the race and the result. I didn't have any real goals, so while the bike was disappointing, it wasn't terrible, and the run more than made up for it.

As far as how to improve... well, the biggest payoff would probably come from getting a better bike. My heavy upright hybrid is just not meant for racing and I think I could easily shave off at least five minutes with a better one. I could probably pick up a one or two "free" minutes in transition with better practice. I am taking swim lessons again, but really, on a course such as this there's not much time to gain or lose in the swim component.

I'm pretty sure I could have pushed a little harder on the run; based on past experience, I probably had at least 5bpm of untapped heart rate reserve. I know I could have pushed harder on the bike, but I don't know how much I would have had to pay for it on the run. I guess I'll have to just try another race some time to find out.

Chicago Life Time Tri results

3:46:56
2645/2943 overall
1912/2071 gender
36/38 division (male clydesdale, 0-39, 200-224lbs)

Swim: 45:49 (rank: 2603)
T1: 6:52
Bike: 1:36:52 (15.7mph, rank: 2662)
T2: 5:18
Run: 1:12:03 (11:37/mi, rank: 2438)

Had a great time; more details soon.

Countryside 10K

This morning we ran the Countryside 10K race. I got up around 6am to get a few things picked up before the babysitter arrived at 7. We left shortly afterwards and I was worried that we'd be late since Google projected a 38-minute driving time. Fortunately, the route was mostly on country roads where you can drive pretty fast, so we arrived about 20 minutes before the race start. Lenore picked up our bibs and "ag swag bags;" they were running out of safety pins but we were able to score one each. Then I queued up for the port-a-potties while Lenore listened to the pre-race announcements.

I emerged from the port-a-potty as they were playing the national anthem; it was kind of disorienting to walk around the crowd standing solemnly with hands on their hearts. The announcer also described how we'd be running around some of the finest farm land "god gave us," and gave a warning that the start of signal would consist of "ready... farm sound ... set ... another farm sound ... go!" I guess it was good he gave that warning because I couldn't hear anything from the start line, so I wouldn't have gotten to experience that bit of "country" flavor!

Anyway, a few people did hear the start signal and they relayed it to the rest of us, so we started racing. Right away, I knew I was in trouble. My legs felt very tired. I wanted to make sure I have a good training week this week, so I ended up swimming Friday night. I also decided to ride my bike to work and back, and even though I tried to take it easy to save my legs, I still used up a fair amount of energy during nearly 20 miles in the saddle. And I don't think I was fully recovered from the speedwork session on Wednesday. So my legs simply did not want to move very fast.

And moving very fast they were. Lenore, once again, just took off ahead, and I took off after her. Shortly, I had to slow down, but my iPhone was still showing me running very fast, 8-something per mile! I started slowing down and started getting passed by more and more people. Eventually, I reached the 1 mile mark, where they had a volunteer calling out times... 8:26, 8:27, 8:28. I was definitely going way too fast!

I slowed down a little bit more. Ahead of me, Lenore was slowing down, too, and in fact I was closing the gap. I thought to myself "Great, maybe we can run together for a bit!" As I caught up to her, I asked her about her ankle (which had been hurting a bit), but this caused her to slow down and fall behind. I had figured that she had decided it was hurting too much and decided to rest, maybe walk back, so I just pressed on. The second mile was over in 9:10, which was at least more reasonable. I figured, if I could keep around that pace, maybe a bit slower, I could reach my goal of beating Lenore's 10K time from the Illinois Marathon.

The third mile was when the real pain began. My body was increasingly insistent on quitting. All I could think of was collapsing into a heap. I also felt like I was the last person in the race; the pack of runners I started with was all ahead of me and there wasn't anyone for quite some distance behind. Rationally, I knew that there must have been runners behind, but emotionally, it still felt demoralizing. I tried to distract myself with singing a song in my head. (I had left my headphones at home because I mistakenly thought that headphones were forbidden on the course.) The only one I could think of was the "green grass grows all around" song from one of our kids' music CDs. "The biggest tree..." step step pant... "that you ever did see..." step step pant...

I finished mile 3 in just under 10 minutes. I picked up a gatorade at the water stop, and walked for a few paces while I drank it.  I thought maybe that the little bit of sugar would pick me up, and indeed, for the next short while, I actually managed to run for a while without feeling miserable. But sugar rushes are, of course, short-lived, and by the end of mile 4, the pain was back. I didn't even bother calculating my split pace (9:55); I no longer was caring about how fast I ran, I just wanted this race to be over!

I did a lot of soul-searching during mile 5. Why was I doing this to myself? Everything in my body was screaming that it's time to stop. I was thinking back of a blog post I read that talked about whether you train so you can race, or you race so that you train. For me, I'm pretty sure I race to train. The race achievements are nice, but the important part is getting fitter and exercising regularly, not getting a PR. So in theory, there'd be nothing wrong with listening to my body and walking the rest of the way. Finally, I convinced myself that this was a good exercise in discipline. I also figured I only needed to make it to the next water stop, where I could walk for a bit as I'm drinking.

Once I was walking, starting to run again was the hardest thing. I ended up walking about 30 seconds, just catching my breath, before starting up again. But eventually, it was one foot in front of the other, repeat, until I was done. I started feeling curious about my time again. My average pace was now 9:38 or so, and I knew I wasn't capable of running much faster than a 10-minute mile anymore, but I still had a shot at making it under an hour. At the five-mile mark, they called out a time of 58 and a few seconds. I quickly calculated: 1.2 miles to go, at 10 minutes per mile... it was going to be close!

I wish I could say that this thought energized me and pushed me to run faster, but I simply felt like I had no reserves left. I started counting down the distance. The finish line felt so close, yet so far away! Finally, with about a half mile to go, I switched to 2-1 breathing (I had been doing 2-2 for most of the race), which allowed me to pick up the pace ever so slightly. Finally, I rounded a corner and saw the race clock at the finish line. 59:04! But it looked like such a long way to go. I lengthened my stride, pumped those arms, and finally crossed the finish line when it read 59:33! That was a minute and a half PR from my last 10K.

They tore off my tag while I gasped uncontrollably, then I made a beeline for the port-a-potty. When I was done, I tried to stand up, and my legs just gave out on me. I guess I had really given it my all. On a second attempt, I successfully made it out of the bathroom. I started downing gatorade and looking for Lenore. I figured that she had either turned back before the 2-mile mark, in which case she should have been there already, or she was run-walking because of her ankle injury, in which case she would probably not be there for quite a while. To my surprise, she came down the finish chute when I was on my 3rd cup of gatorade. Apparently, she had met up with another runner, who had encouraged her to keep running.

Lenore's ankle was pretty sore, so we got an ice pack from the car, and then made our way to the food area. I was feeling close to collapse, so I figured it'd be OK to go off diet and have some carbs. We refueled for a bit, but eventually got too cold, and it was time to go home and relieve our babysitter, so we headed home.

Results

Nikita: 59:34.4, 9/10 in age group (ouch!), 41/51 gender, 75/129 overall

Lenore: 1:02:34.1, 16/27 in age group, 43/78 gender, 86/129 overall

Some final thoughts

Thinking about this race versus the 10K at the Illinois Marathon, they are like night and day. Back then, I started out going fairly slowly, and then negative split things and accelerated towards the end. This race, I started out too fast and then slowed down after the first couple of miles. And even though I finished the race faster today, I think I much prefer the negative split approach: accelerating towards the end feels empowering, whereas slowing down feels pretty demoralizing. After the first quarter mile or so, I did not pass a single person this race... except Lenore.

My other thought is that I treated both this race and the Wildcat race as `B' races that I would run while training for another race (in this case, the Chicago Triathlon), whereas the 10K at the Illinois Marathon was a race that I specifically trained and prepared for. As a result, I ended up doing a bunch of exercise in the week leading up to the race, and some the day right before. But as a result, instead of having a fun race, I felt pretty miserable for large chunks instead. So I think in the future, even if I'm trying to integrate a "fun" race into my normal training schedule, I should make sure that it's during a rest week, or at least has a rest day preceding it.

And my final thought is that, despite how I was feeling, I ran a great race! The first mile might well have been the fastest mile I have ever run, and I improved my PR by 90 seconds. And I very nearly caught up to Lenore's 10K time from the Illinois Marathon!

MooMoo...crawl

Today was my first attempt at a trail race, running the Wildcat 10K, put on by Brazen Racing. It fit nicely into my scheduled trip to the Bay area, and my friend Bem had often said great things about Brazen, so I decided to sign up. The main question for me was whether to run a 5K or 10K, since although I can easily run a 10K on flat land, the hilly course here was going to be a challenge. I decided to follow the rule of "when in doubt, pick the more challenging option" and signed up for the 10K.

I ordered breakfast in my hotel to come between 6 and 6:30, figuring this would wake me up in time for the race. After breakfast, I drove to the race location, where I met up with Bem and some of his racing friends, and eventually with Alex and his friend Mark. Bem and Alex were running the half-marathon, while Mark was doing the 10K with me.

Bem explained to me that the key to this type of race is to walk up the hills; the announcer at the start also recommended this approach. Emotionally, it felt kind of disappointing, because being able to run long distances without having to walk feels like one of my biggest accomplishments over the last year, but rationally, it was obviously the right strategy. The race started with a big uphill climb and it was obvious that everyone was walking rather than running, so any bad feelings about walking quickly evaporated.

They were quickly replaced by bad feelings from my legs, which were complaining about having to lug my body up hills for the second day in a row (on Friday, I went on a two-hour bike ride from San Francisco to Sausalito and back). The first mile had about 450ft of climbing (according to RunKeeper); this was definitely not the Midwest! Despite walking, my heart rate stayed in the 160s the whole time.

What goes up must come down and soon there was a descent. I made up a lot of time here by switching to a super-fast cadence and holding on for dear life. Things flattened out a bit and I got to see some cows!

I stopped at the first aid station long enough to drink two cups of water and the continued on my way. My stomach did feel a bit unsettled for a while and I wondered whether eating breakfast and/or having so much water was a mistake. I also felt like my muscles weren't responding very well and I was barely moving, but whenever I'd look down at my iPhone, it showed me running around a ten-minute mile, which I thought was pretty good considering.

By the third mile, I settled into a comfortable rhythm, with a nice 3-2 breathing pattern. The course was fairly flat for a while and I felt much more in my element. By the time I got to the second aid station, I was feeling pretty optimistic about the race: I was halfway done, and my average pace was somewhere around 12 minutes / mile, which I thought pretty respectable given the hills. This line of reasoning had just one flaw. See, I had in my mind this elevation profile for the race:

Careful readers, however, might observe the markings on the x axis and notice that this is the 5K elevation profile. For the 10K, it looked more like this:

So I had finished the easy half, with all of the hard work still ahead. Even though I wasn't feeling super thirsty, I drank a cup of Ultima Replenisher (which actually tasted pretty good; not too sweet, like I feared), which turned out to be a very good idea given what lay in store for me:

I started hiking up the hill and watched that average pace drop to 13 minutes, then to 14 minutes, then to 14 and a half. I kept having the experience of reaching the crest of a hill, settling into an easy trot on the downhill while catching my breath, only to turn and see more climbing ahead! It was kind of demoralizing. The only consolation I had were the gorgeous views of hills (and more cows!):

After an hour, I had only made it through about 4 and a quarter miles, and I felt mentally ready to be done. At one of the final crests, there was a nice bench where you could sit down, take a load off, and take in the views and man, was it ever tempting!

Finally, it was time to start the long descent. By this point in time, my legs just didn't want to move, so I ended up having to go much slower this time. Probably a good idea, too: another runner passed me on a downhill and then ended up falling not too far ahead. (She was OK.) There were a couple of small upticks nestled in the descent, and I ended up nearly crawling up them. Somewhere in my mind I thought that it would be nice to finish within an hour and a half, or end with a sub-14-minute pace, but not enough to do any real sprinting to the finish. It did feel nice when the announcer called my name as I crossed the finish line, but it was even nicer knowing that I was finally done!

I picked up my finisher's medal and saw Mark, who had finished about 8 minutes ahead of me and looked to be holding up much better. Then I started the replenishment cycle. I am off my low-carb diet this week so I got to pig out on all of the tasty post-race treats. I saw Bem finish his half-marathon, looking salty and happy. I did not stick around to see Alex finish since I needed to go check out of my hotel.

Final results: 

1:30:42 (14:10 pace, since the course was 6.4 miles)

11/16 age group, 91/161 overall

Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about this experience. Dragging your body uphill is a pretty different feeling than pushing your pace while racing on flat ground; they both involve fighting through exhaustion, but I think you get a much better endorphin reward with the latter, and the fact that you are moving rather than crawling makes it emotionally more satisfying. Then again, it could be that I'm just not used to going up hills at all and my body is responding in kind. So I'm not ready to write off trail racing yet, but I think next time I'll try to find one with less elevation gain and get more rest ahead of time.

10K @ Illinois Marathon — race report

Great race this morning!

The day began bright and early, with the babysitter arriving at 6 a.m. sharp. The weather was cool and windy, with a 40% chance of rain. I checked the marathon site just in case and they had a message confirming the race was on, but we found some slightly warmer clothes to wear out. We parked our car just as the marathoners and half-marathoners were starting off. We watched the corrals set off one by one while trying to keep warm. But by the time we were getting lined up at the start, it was much warmer. It's amazing how effective a couple thousand people are at generating heat and serving as a wind breaker! We lined up with the 11 min/mile group; I was planning to run at a 10:30 pace and Lenore wasn't really sure, though we were thinking between 11 and 13.

As soon as the race started, Lenore just took off ahead. I decided to keep back to maintain my pace, though I noticed that, feeling the energy for the crowd, I was still running faster than planned. My first mile split was 9:54, but my heart rate was in the 160s, which I figured was most important. I kept looking ahead for Lenore, figuring that she would slow down at some point, but didn't see her anywhere, so I kept running.
                                                                                                           
Second mile felt great; feeling lots of energy from the crowd, still running faster than expected, for a split of 10:06. There was a small grade at the end of it, which sent my heart rate above 170, so I tried to moderate my pace a little bit.  During the third mile, I was starting to worry that I had gone out too fast; my pace was slowing down a bit and I was noticing having to breathe a little heavier. My heart rate stayed at about 170 the whole mile.

I crossed the 5K mark at 31:20, which was about 30 seconds faster than my last 5K race back in March. I was still worried about the pacing, knowing that there was another 5K to go, but I figured I could start tapping into anaerobic reserves now, and my heart rate stated creeping up into the 170s. After the 4 mile mark, I decided to throw caution to the wind and stop worrying about my heart rate; it shot up to high 170s as I pulled out a 9:42 split. Somewhere towards the end of the fifth mile, I noticed that my average pace was 10:04 and realized that a sub-10-minute pace was within reach. I kicked it up a notch, switching to 2-2 breathing, and then to 2-1 when there was about a mile to go. Around mile 5 is also when I realized that if I had not caught up to Lenore so far, it wasn't likely to happen. I kept thinking that maybe I had passed her without noticing, but that seemed unlikely.

Approaching the stadium, I was definitely having to push myself pretty hard. I remember feeling really disappointed when I saw that we actually had to run a little past the entrance and then turn around, since my body was ready to stop any minute now. I did manage a sprint towards the finish, crossing just after 1:02 on the clock time. And there, holding her finishers medal, was Lenore, waiting for me. She had finished ahead of me by about a minute and a half!

My official chip time was 61:08, or a 9:51 pace. This was way faster than I had planned, and I pulled off one hell of a negative split, with 9:05 for mile 6 and 8:54 for the last little bit. But Lenore's time was even more of a surprise; we were both totally convinced that I would finish significantly before her and I had at one point estimated her finishing time to be around 1 hour 20. Boy, were we ever off!


My results:
Clock Time 1:02:17
Chip Time 1:01:08
Overall Place 705 / 2218 (32%)
Gender Place 379 / 730 (52%)
Division Place 62 / 105 (59%)

Lenore's results:

Clock Time 1:00:41
Chip Time 59:33
Overall Place 595 / 2218 (27%)
Gender Place 250 / 1488 (17%)
Division Place 31 / 201 (15%)

I was pretty excited about beating the 10 min / mile mark, but a little disappointed when I realized that this still puts me in the bottom half of my age group. Lenore, on the other hand, was in the 15th percentile in her division! We were pretty excited about this, until we learned that everyone else we knew running this race was faster than us. We finally settled on thinking that we're probably faster than most of the people we knew who did not run a race this weekend! And we got medals to boot, which the twins loved playing with the whole day.

It's been great training for this race and a lot of fun running it. I have a week off and then it's time to start training for the Chicago triathlon in August! Lenore's not doing that one because she doesn't feel comfortable enough swimming, but she's excited to find another land-based race to kick my ass in!