sunday 4.9.2006 - long weekend (long post)

what a long, good weekend.

Saturday: club race and leg crushing ride of mt soledad with guernseyman.

the race:

you gotta love the triathlon club of san diego... free races every month... well not free. i do pay $60 a year for membership, but that has paid for itself with all the discounts i have received with my club card.


so the race... it was supposed to be sprint tri but they turned it into a DU because all the rain and run off that that has the bay kind of polluted right now.


the course:

2 mile run

14 mile bike

3 mile run



going into this race i felt like crap. i have been beat all week from work and training. all this hard work was taking it's toll, and this was just a training race so there was no scheduled rest for this race. yesterday was rough. i swam in the morning and was completely fried. ok.. back to the race.


warm-up:

2 mile easy jog & light stretching



2mile run:

one guy went out really fast and he looked legit so i hung with him and then passed him after a 1/4 of mile and made it my race. i pushed pretty hard to the 1 mile turn around and had one guy 10 feet behind me and the rest of the pack was a ways off of us. the guy following me was hanging right with me so i decided to try and make him hurt if i could. i was not going all out. speed wise i would say i was at about 7 out of 10. so i would slow a bit and let him catch me and then speed up and make him push harder to stay with me. i did this for the last 1/2 mile and could tell he was hurting. if finished the run in about 10 minutes flat (maybe sub 10, we'll see when the post the results).



14 mile bike (5 laps):


well the guy i was messing with passed me right at the end of the first lap and then one more guy passed. my legs were fried from the rides i did this past week, but i stayed about 50 yards behind them and no one else passed me. i was just waiting for the second run. then on the 4th lap the leaders took a turn you were only supposed to take on the last lap, skipping the whole last lap. i didn't follow and did another lap. i finished another lap and as i rode into t2 i saw about 5 people out on the run ahead of me. apparently 3 guys behind me followed the leaders on the wrong turn. no worries.. it's just a practice race.... right.



3 mile run:

there was no one close to me... all the fastest guys took the wrong turn and the other 40 people were well behind. i finshed the 5 mile run in 16:30 and my legs were really feeling it.



aftermath:


i won since the other guys skipped a whole lap on the bike. i was kind of bummed on how it ended. it was shaping up to be really close race with it all coming down to the run until they took the wrong turn. it's awesome to be able to do these as full speed practice races.


the ride:


after the race guernseyman and I did a gnarly ride. it was 30 miles of riding while climbing mt soledad 5 times on 5 different routes. we originally were going to 8 climbs but were beat down after 5 and called it a day. he crushed me and my legs are still aching, but iam better for it. i can't wait to go back and tackle these climbs again.


sunday:


i volunteered to help out with the monthly beginner's race that the tri club of san diego puts on. so i woke up early on sunday, which is normally the day that i sleep in a bit, chugged some coffee and headed out the door.



there 54 people that turned for the race and most of them had never done a tri before. the course was a 300m swim, 11 mile bike, 2 mile run. i volunteered to go sit at the run turn around.



it was so much fun. i had no idea that i would have this good of time sitting next to a cone and telling people to turn around. most people were hurting by the time they got to me and i made sure to give every single person words of encouragement and try to get them to track down the people ahead of them. i was having a great time. most of people talked to me and a couple of people asked me "is this supposed to be fun". i couldn't help but laugh. i also got a lot of thank you's.



eventhough a lot of these people were hurting they were all having a great time and i could tell that they would be back. they weren't at home watching tv. they were outside sweating their butts off trying improve their health and have a good time. overall it was way more fulfilling than i ever thought it could be and i will defnitely be helping out at more of these race.



go volunteer to help out at a race... it will give you a bit of different perspective.



triathlon will change your life..... i am convinced.



weekend workouts:

saturday:
race - 2 mile run/14 mile bike/3 mile run
30 mile ride

sunday:
1000 yard open water swim
8 mile run