The Bike

The Bike:

Now that the brunt of the training has passed I thought I would post a little blurb on my bike and the configuration I’ve chosen for IMAZ.

I’ve spend the last few years getting this bike just the way I want it. The bike was originally purchased for IMFL in ’04 but that race just never happened. Life sometimes gets in the way of the best laid plans. This will be IM number three for the bike, that is assuming I finish! (knock on wood). Over the years the bike has been almost entirely rebuilt with the only original equipment being the headset, brakes/levers, and shifters.

The bike is a 2004 Quintana Roo Caliente, Tangerine with flames, I think it’s one of the best looking paint schemes to come out. The only other person I know in New Mexico that has the same bike is my friend and fellow Outlaw “the Pocket Assassin”.

So, I thought I would list the components on the bike and give some details about why I chose the particular component.

The bike frame:
49 cm Quintana Roo Caliente, 50 cm top tube length. You’ll notice on the picture that the set tube extends way past the top tube. This is a horrible design for adjustability, effectively this makes the frame a 52 cm frame, which isn’t a good thing I really liked this frame because it has a combination of carbon stays, carbon fork and carbon steerer tube. It has barrel adjusters for on the fly tuning, and it came in my size with 650 wheels. Finding a small bike is pretty challenging, especially 4 years ago, and I really lucked out finding a bike that I liked.

From the bottom up:

Tires: Michelin 650 Pro2 race Clinchers – Great tires, light, rolls well, lots of grip and pretty puncture resistant. I’m also running two ounces of Stans in each wheel to fend off those nasty goatheads. The Stans add weight but in the scheme of things I don’t really think it matters much.

Wheel set: 2006 Zip 404, 650 Clinchers. Light, stiff, aero, versatile, Overall great wheel set, Oh and I got them for $400, with only about 200 miles on them.

Chain: SRAM PC 9speed Hollow-pin – Light, easy to maintain, and shifts great.

Crank Set/Bottom Bracket: Dura-Ace 10 sp Double, Length 167.5 mm, 39x53 This is a strange size but my short legs seem to like the 167.5 crank arm length. The first time I used this crankset I felt awesome! The former crankset was heavy and had an odd gearing of 41x52, but combined with the 650 wheelset I had reasonable climbing power but would always spin out on the decent. The new gear ratio gives me a few more gears on the assent and a little bit more speed on the decent. Overall a great choice, but the Q-factor seems to be a bit smaller that the old crank set which limits my crossover gears, Oh well, life is tough when you ride a small bike.

Pedals: Speed Play X2, Light easy to get in and out of, lots of float.

Rear Derailleur: Dura-Ace, short cage, Smooth shifting, light.

Rear Cassette, Dura-Ace 11-23, I’m leaning toward this gear selection because IMAZ only has a few small hills (Other than the b-line) My other choice is the gear that I’ve been riding for the training rides it’s an SRAM, 12-26. The SRAM is a great Cassette and an overall good gearing, light and much cheaper than the DA.

Skewers: Zipp Titanium shafts – 85 grams for the pair, light, strong and they match the Zipp wheels!

Graphics: “Bones”, From Speedy sign, it cost’s all of 5 bucks, and, I think, is pretty cool.
Front Derailleur, Ultegra, Stock – Couldn’t justify upgrading this.

Waterbottle cage: Arundel Carbon, what can I say, carbon is cool.

Brakes: Ultegra, Stock. These are good brakes, why change them out?

Headset: Stock, I’ve never had and issue with it.

Seat Post: Easton EC90 Carbon. I needed a straight seat post because of the extended seat tube. The Easton is light, straight and was on sale! Yeah, thats right, there's only about half and inch of post showing!

Seat: Wow, This has been an ongoing quest but I think I’ve finally found the right seat! It’s a Blackwell Flow, It’s much narrower than I’m used to riding but things seem to be supported quite well, no numbing issues, no back pain and no chafing. If you notice the sides of the saddle come down past the rails which make the nose a bit wide, but that’s not a deal breaker. For me, this has been the best Tri saddle I have ever ridden.

Hydration: X-lab carbon wing. This back of the seat hydration pack is much lighter than it’s predecessor and it sits back off the tail end of the seat a bit more. With my old wing I was constantly breaking bottle cages. The new one is light strong and has many more ways to attach gear. On the bottle side of the wing I’m using a specialized rib cage, which keeps me from ejecting bottles.

Cycle computer: Catyeye Dual wireless. This really cleans up the bike while giving me everything I could ask for in a computer. Nice easy to read display, cadence and it works flawlessly.

Spacers: Carbon no-name – Yeah, Carbon is good.

Stem: F99, 80 mm, Very Light, stiff and reasonably inexpensive.

BaseBar: Syntace Stratos, Small 39cm. For some reason this bike came with a 41cm basebar – who knows why?

AeroBars: Profile carbon Stryke. These bars are about the most adjustable bar I have every come across. You can tweak them endlessly. Light good vibration dampening. I changed out the stock Profile arm pads with the Syntace pads which actually have padding.

Shifters: Dura Ace, Not many other options.

Brake levers: Provile Quick Stop 2 - Good solid levers – no reason to change out.

There you have it, 4 years of component evolution.

Soma

Soma:

I feel like an athlete by association, is that the way it should be? Does that mean I haven’t been racing enough or does it mean that I’ve lost whatever drive it takes for me to consider myself an athlete? The ironic thing about this whole feeling is that I’m in the final big weeks of training for IMAZ. I think working Soma and the Elephant man and watching everyone compete has made me feel kind of like an outsider. Obviously I’m not but it’s really a strange feeling to shake.

But on to more fun things:

Helping official at the Soma Triathlon was great! Across the board everyone was thankful there were enough Refs on the course to break up any packs that might have formed and hopefully we succeeded. The folks I talked to at the airport didn’t report any large packs or any other problems and everyone seemed to have a good time.

This was my first large race that I was an official at and it was pretty interesting. You really do have the best seat in the house to watch the race. Unfortunately I only got to go out on the motorcycle towards the end of the Half Iron so I missed the burnt of the action. However, I did get to monitor the bike mount/dismount area. There were several athletes that tried getting on the bike without buckling their helmets and fortunately the volunteers did a great job of reminding folks about their helmet straps. Some of the athletes had an amazing dismount process, several came in way to hot and crashed at the dismount line, a couple lost shoes and one guy even unbuckled his helmet before starting to do his flying dismount, right in front of me. That’s focus, and I have to give him credit for an incredible act of agility, however it is against the rules. We will just leave it at that.

I moseyed over to the street next to the mount/dismount area to watch the race and make sure there weren’t any blatantly large packs. Now this is the interesting part. It took about 15 seconds for most riders to go from the top curve, down the hill and into the next curve. This is a long way when you are doing 18-30 mph and I don’t think most of the athletes realized that they could legally draft through that section. I made myself pretty obvious by standing in the middle median, it was pretty hard to miss that bright red shirt. Folks would have outstanding manners while I was around. They would complete passes “just like they intended on doing”, pull to the right and let people pass. Very courteous and rule following while I was there, as soon as I made myself less visible people became much more aggressive and more willing to draft. It was pretty funny because this was all in a little 15 second strip of the course, where I couldn’t really ding them anyway. It has really changed my perspective on how to get the most out of those little sections.

There was one athlete on the dismount zone that was a little ticked off at one of the volunteers trying to get him to slow down, he started to yell something until he spotted me, we made eye contact and he just bit his lip. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been there, and I wonder how that athlete was treating the other volunteers.

I kind of felt like that frustrated cop on the freeway, you know the one that is stuck in traffic doing exactly 65 mph, Cars in front, cars in back, cars to each side but strangely enough, no cars 200 yards beyond or behind him. Everyone “acts” good when they think they might get dinged. Which is fine, I was just hoping just to be visible enough to let some of the less scrupulous folks know that there were officials around.

And really, I just noticed the folks breaking or really pushing the rules everyone else, the vast majority, of the almost 1800 athletes were great and I hope they had a good safe, experience.

Congratulations to all the folks that raced! Special congratulations to DP, who finally raced and completed the race!!

Duke City Marathon

Ahhh, Iron fitness,

It’s kind of funny how your perspective changes as you get more and more into endurance sports. Yesterday Miguel and I ran the Duke CityMarathon as a training run for Ironman Arizona, yes, a training run. We ran at a goal pace of 9:30 minute miles, which is, for me, a very aerobic hr of 130ish, that translated to about a 4:17 marathon.

I was a bit nervous about running marathon because I haven’t really been training for a standalone marathon with my longest run of the year being18 miles and that was last week! I was hoping my IM fitness would carry me through and it did with flying colors! I’m only a little sore today and expect a speedy recovery.

A few years ago the thought of doing a marathon on less than 45 running miles per week sounded absurd, this marathon was done on less than 25 miles per week. Granted I have been very consistent in my long runs of 14ish miles over the course of the spring and summer and I have been training for an Ironman, but I’m still amazed at how good I felt during the event. Maybe not doing a 100 mile bike ride the day before a long run helps, who would have thunk?

We did the marathon at a pretty slow pace, far off any personal records but the goal wasn’t to set a new PR, it was to get a good long run under out belts, get our legs and feet use to taking a pounding, working on our nutrition, and have a good time doing it. All of which we accomplished. One more check on the IM prep schedule.

It was great seeing all the fellow Outlaws and friends out on the course. It was an absolutely perfect day for a marathon, nice and brisk in the morning and warming up towards the end of the run, with a slight breeze on the way back to keep you cool.

When I look at the course profile it’s interesting how much of an elevation change the course actually has. According to Mr Garmin, there’s 2801 feet of change. Very interesting.

I have changed my opinion of the Duke City Marathon. The last time I did the marathon the aid stations were few and far between, they pretty much ran out of water/Gatorade/cups and they just didn’t have any porta-potties set up on the course. All that has changed! They had plenty of aid stations, lots of water/Gatorade, porta-potties setup at various places, lots of volunteers, they even had little four wheeler cruising between the aid stations. The timing was done via some sort of RFID tags with timing stations setup throughout the course and the staff was great to work with. Overall it was a great experience! My opinion of the DCM has really changed! Well worth the $65 entry fee.

Ironman dues

Some days you wonder if you should even be riding.

Ironman Arizona is now less than 50 days away and the weekend long rides are at 100 miles, or at least they should be. This weekends 100 mile ride didn't go quite as scheduled.

For some reason I couldn't sleep in the morning of the ride, maybe I was a little apprehensive because I knew the ride was a big one and the next days run was also going to be pretty long. So while I was wondering around the house I decided to check the tires on my bike and air them up for the ride. Well wouldn't you know it I had a half inch slice in the rear tire and the Stans was oozing and bubbling out. Darn it. I took the tire off patched the TIRE, put a new tube in, filled it with Stans and called it good. Maybe this was an omen that I completely missed?

We finally meet up at Defined fitness and SWTRIGAL suggests changing our route because of the bad weather, She wants to head north for 20 miles then turn south for 40 miles, then turn back north to get the benefit of a tail wind on the way home. I really wanted to get some hill training in so we decided to play it by ear. As it turns out playing it by ear doesn't work so well

We head north to our traditional breaking point, or should I say our traditional porta-potty point. Most folks are fairly well hydrated and need one final relief before kicking the ride into high gear.

It's all going well until we leave the parking lot, I manage to get myself wedged between two riders at the parking lot exit, not good since the exit has a very solid wood post right in the middle of the exit. Darn, my left foot won't unclip and my track stand just wasn't going well, down I went. Okay, this is going to be a rough ride. At least I get a lot of sympathy from the lady outlaws, the guys were more concerned about the delay I was causing by trying to get back on my feet! Oh well, guess it's better to fall over and embarrass yourself in front of your friends, right?

The next 30ish miles of the ride out to San Ysidro was uneventful, except for the 25-29 mph that a really generous tail wind provided. We knew it was going to be rough going back, but boy, we didn't count on mother nature getting really pissed at us and throwing everything she had at us.

Brian and Paul agreed to pull the group back and most folks lined up behind them, at this point we had about a 20 mph head wind. I hung off the back, out of the draft zone so I could get a good workout in and maybe help pull any wayward riders back up to the pack.

Completely The winds were pretty outrageous and it felt like we were going to be blown over any number of times. About 65 miles into the ride the sand and gravel that was blowing into our faces was replaced by a light rain, not so bad, Then the hail started and that hurt, we made it to a gas station to regroup we discussed stopping at the local Flying star and having folks pick us up but decided to carry on, the weather looked like it was clearing up. I borrowed a jacket from Michi, who wisely decided she had had enough fun in the great outdoors for one day and called for MG to pick her up. On our way back the weather calmed down for a good few miles and the head wind picked back up. We all regrouped back at the Defined Fitness parking lot and looked at the storm front moving in. I decided to hightail it home before the storm hit. Well....While I was at the light crossing the only major street that separated my from a nice warm shower the rain hit. Now, I don't mind riding in the rain, after all I had a nice jacket that Michi lent me. No problem, Another quarter mile up the hill to my house and the hail started. Ouch, It was hailing so hard I couldn't see where I was going, The almost marble sized pellets really stung, luckily the storm was moving quickly and I was only in the hail for four or five minutes. By the time I got home I was completely soaked.

While I getting ready to take a shower I was summing up the bruises and scrapes from my little fall when I noticed all the little welts all over my back arms and legs. Those darn little hail pellets left their impression. It took several hours before they went away but at least most of them didn't bruise.

All in all, It was one of those rides that will live on in our memories. "Remember that ride we did getting ready for IMAZ back in the fall of '08?" . Yep, it was one rough ride, and I didn't even get in my 100 miles! Now, SWTriGal assures me that riding 80 miles on those conditions is equal to 100 miles of normal riding. I think we have all paid some of our Iron dues this weekend! Guess we will find out around November 23rd!

Offically an offical

Do these kakis make my butt look big? I joked to my daughter. She just rolled her eyes in typical 13 year old girl fashion and walked away. It’s every Dads duty to try and embarrass his daughter in public and I do a fine job of it. My shopping spree was brought on by the eminent threat of being a first time USAT official at the local Elephant man Olympic distance triathlon, in Elephant butte NM. Or as it seems to have become know, the Elf butt. Thus my joke about my butt looking big, humor totally wasted on my daughter. Oh well, I found it amusing.

I needed some non-work kaki colored pants to wear as part of the USAT official dress code. Yes, I’m now a certified USAT Category 4 official. Which means I’m not the lowest of the low (as far as officials go) but pretty low on the ladder of officialdom. But still, I have the uniform, and you know how women love guys in uniform! Haha, yeah that was the big joke, I was going to use my new found power to lure the girls into my evil grasp!

It was a whole different perspective looking at the race as an official and it was lot of fun. The hardest part for me was not getting caught up in the competition, I wanted to talk about strategy, get ready for the race, layout my gear and talk smack. Oh well, there will be plenty of time for that at IMAZ. The coolest part is I got to look at/inspect everyone’s bike and nobody batted an eye. Oh, was I supposed to be looking for safety issues? Yeah that’s what I was supposed to be doing. But it was more like, wow that is an incredible looking bike how does it ride? Or, do you have any problems riding the 808’s in the wind. Yeah safety, that’s why I was looking at the bikes… All joking aside, I was actually pretty serious about looking for safety issues, but there was just so much bike porn!

From a personal perspective I really liked the whole venue. Kori is a fantastic race director, she kept people informed, organized, had plenty of volunteers, the course seemed well marked, and everyone had a super friendly attitude.

The race has just about everything you could want in an Olympic distance race, Medical tent, massage, food, lots of volunteers, A challenging course, open water swim, sand and the best Outlaw aid station money can buy.

Speaking about the aid station, Many thanks to Jane & her people, Misty, Steven, Courtney, Orlando and Connor (who, I think built rock piles?). You guys rocked!

The bike course seems especially challenging. While I haven’t ridden the course I did traverse it multiple times on the motorcycle and I have to say it looks like a lot of fun to ride. The rolling hills, turns, and that climb out of the canyon that looks like it will never end seems like a lot of fun. The run course looked like it had about 2 miles of sand (out and then the same section back) and loose pack which looks like it would really be tough to run.

If you are looking for a good local challenge this might be the race you are looking for. Between the multiple wave swim starts and hills there were virtually no packs of riders or congestion on the bike course. It seems like this race is one of the up and coming must do races for the series.

Colorado Relay

It was a dark and stormy night, and morning and afternoon. That just about describes the beginning of the 11th annual Colorado Relay. Arriving the night before the race in Georgetown CO, the start of the relay, we were greeted with rain, rain and more rain. And guess what, it was still raining the next morning, obviously we weren’t in New Mexico any longer. Ahhh, but we did get a reprieve from the rain, that is, after running up the side of the mountain to about 12000 feet, the rain turned to snow. Yep lots of snow. We had the pleasure of starting in the worst conditions in the history of the race, lucky us. Now that we are veterans of the race we will be able to reminisce about the fall of ’08 when the conditions were the worst in the history of the race! It’s funny how Jane and Dave’s absurdly long packing list didn’t seem quite so absurd when the realization of our situation finally settled in. Jane said to plan for the worst and sure enough, we got it!

I’ll let other folks describe the legs of their runs. I do want to say what an impressive bunch of athletes and genuinely great people were on the team. Everyone had a great attitude and we really got to know each other.

My leg started at the top of Guanella pass at 11,669 feet. When I started out running my heart rate immediately jumped to 160, when it should have been at a comfortable 120-130, guess the altitude makes the ticker work a bit harder. My leg was a decent of about 2,050 for a distance of 8 miles. After about 2 miles my calves and quads were really hurting and I decided to stop and look around. The view up the mountain was just as spectacular as the view down the mountain. wow what an incredible run, even though my feet were soaked and my sunglasses were covered in snow and totally useless it was a fantastic run. Quick exchange of the bracelet and Debi was on her way.

I really tried to run as fast as I thought I could but I still had two more legs ahead of me so I didn’t want to push that hard on the first leg. My time was right at one hour with an AVERAGE hr of 157. I’m not sure how the difficulty of the legs was figured but the overall rating of my legs at 7 out of 10, with the first run rated as very hard. I think the folks running uphill had a much harder legs but for a shorter distance.

After picking up Debi we had a few hours to kill so we found a recreation center at and just kind of hung out and ate lunch. We also did a little shopping for some gloves for Margaret and a rain jacket for DP.

My next leg was at night. I’ve kind of lost track of time but I think it was around 10:00 PM or so. The leg was downhill again and my legs were doing their share of protesting, luckily I got to run with one of the Rubber chicken team members and we had a great little chat as the frost was visibly falling through our headlight beams and our breath obscured our vision. The run was great but not the most scenic since it was at night along some type of frontage road. I can’t remember the time for the leg, I think sleep deprivation had starting setting in and it was way past my bed time!

We made our way to the next exchange point and met up with the other van. It was really interesting to learn what our fellow team mates were up to. Between doing laundry and eating at fancy Italian restaurants I’m surprised they even had time to race :)

Our down time was spend in a hotel lobby trying to get some sleep (3:00 AM) , it didn’t work for me but DP sure didn’t seem to mind crashing anywhere. Man I was jealous!

(Some outlaws just hanging out around - 12:00 the next day - don't they have someplace to run or something? From left to right, Brian, Mike, Jimmy, Jane, Margaret)

The third run was gorgeous (about 7:00 AM), It was along the bike path below the Pearl Harbor memorial highway. The river was on the right and it was in this beautiful valley, at times the roaring of the river over the rapids overpowered everything and at other times all you could hear were your footsteps and breathing. My time for this slight downhill leg was 32-33 minutes for a 4.7 mile run, not to bad for running on beat up legs.

Post race was a nice soak in the Glenwood hotsprings, yeah I know, it’s probably the worst thing you can do for recovery, but hey, it was there and it felt so great!! Then on to the condos, pizza, another hot tub and a whole bunch of catching up with the other Van.

Is it still an adventure race if you have all sorts of technology assisting you? In each van we had two way radios and a hand held radios for the times when you were out of the van. Yep just like the cops have! In our van alone we had no fewer than 5 GPS units, one mounted to the windshield, we used the “real” GPS extensively to plot a course to the next exchange point and to find places to hang out. Our clothes were no less high-tech with everyone sporting water resistant, wicking, thin and warm materials we didn’t suffer much from the elements. Oh, don’t forget the 25 thousand dollar van we rented and we had all the sugary snacks that make the dentist’s ears perk up. Yep we were roughing it, after all it was an adventure race.

The race was an incredible experience and I can’t believe that I waited so long to do something like this. If you get the chance, definitely go for it! Oh and don’t worry about the sleep deprivation, 30+ hours without sleep just makes things more interesting!

Special thanks to the Dread Pirate, who did all the leg work, organized all the meetings, kept us on track and planed the whole race.

Very special thanks to Damon, the driver of the “B” van and van mother. He brought the two way radios, GPS units, planned the routes, make sure folks were on time for their runs, not to mention volunteering 4 days of his time to drive a van full of crazy triathletes all over Colorado.



Yep, we are all finished for now. 29 hours and 26 minutes. Not bad for a team that just want's to have fun. Wonder what next year will bring?

Colorado Relay

The Colorado relay is looming! Here’s the scoop: 11 of us are heading to Colorado tomorrow morning to run 170 miles across Colorado, in something like 24-28 hours, non-stop. Yep through rain or snow and dark of night we will be running, that’ll be us, yep, sounds like fun….I keep telling myself that.

The logistics of this race have been kind of a pain but fortunately our fearless leader the Dread Pirate has pulled it all together and it looks like everything is a go. Lots of kudos to her!

There are 10 runners, mostly Outlaws, and one driver and two vans. Even the most staunch of athletes succumbs to scheduling problems so our two backup runners are now full members of the team. And we are short a driver, it looks like we will be taking turns at the wheel. Hopefully the Dread Pirate won’t lash us if we make a wrong turn or something!

I get to run leg 4, 14 and 24 which translates to a run in the morning, a run in the late evening around 8:00 pm and another run in the early morning.

This should be an adventure!

Foothills

The Colorado relay has been on my mind a lot lately since we have been training in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains every weekend. Here’s a Google Earth view of a good portion of the run as well as the elevation and my HR for the run. I have forgotten how beautiful the foot hills are at this time of year. The Google Earth view doesn’t really do justice of the foot hills. The terrain is rugged and very green considering its high desert and on the Dry west side of the mountains.

The idea is that we get some tough hill workouts plus a little altitude. Albuquerque is about 5500 feet and the top altitude on our trail run is about 6700 feet so we are at altitude plus we have almost 3000 feet of altitude change. We don’t really want to run the top of the mountain because you don’t get enough oxygen to your legs which makes for a poor quality workout.

It has been about 10 years since I’ve run in the foot hills and I have forgotten how tough the trails were and what how intense the hills and altitude make the workout it was a lot of fun, but definitely not a base building workout.

Dehydration

One of my biggest fears in IM racing (racing is a relative term) is getting dehydrated. Lots of really bad things happen when you get dehydrated, kidney failure, coma, shock, GI issues. You get the idea. About 60 percent of your body is made up of water losing 5 percent of that water has a major impact on performance.

I sweat a lot! In spin class the sweat actually flows to the lowest spot on the floor and forms a puddle. Not a few little drops here and there but puddles. My clothes are completely soaked during a spin class or an early morning run, I can actually wring out my clothes.

One of the first signs of dehydration that I can monitor for is cardiac drift. Cardiac drift is when your heart rate rises due to dehydration. Since you have lower blood volume when you are dehydrated your heart beats faster trying to keep the blood pressure up. My first experience with this was at Buffalo Springs Half Ironman. A friend of mine, who happens to be a physician and a very good IM athlete, told me that you can only absorb about 28 ounces of fluid per hour and that I shouldn’t drink more than that because it will just sit in my gut. Well, It turns out I can and should drink more than the standard water bottle per hour. By the time I realized the folly of my ways it was way to late to re-hydrate. I ended up cramping on the bike and walking a good part of the run. At the medical (thanks to IronMaiden for walking me to the tent) the doc was shocked that I could still stand. My heart rate was around 140 (normally in the 50’s) and my BP was something like 80 over 40. So, after taking three bags of fluid in the medical tent, my HR was much lower and my BP was high enough so I could actually stand up without getting dizzy. I’m not sure where those three bags of fluid went because they sure didn’t come out over the course of a few days. Oh, and when you get that dehydrated you feel horrible.

At IMLou I consumed about 14 bottles of fluid on the bike – in SIX HOURS. I must have been a little closer to the mark because I only needed one bag of fluid at the medical tent!

Bottoms up :)

Cardiac drift

Here's some interesting data from the Race The Train ride. It looks like I have a bit of cardiac drift happening. This is after about five bottles of fluid over the course of three hours. I wonder if the previous day's race contributed.

Weekend of Racing

What can I say? Every once in a while you just have a great weekend doing what you really like to do; having fun and hanging out with great people. This weekend was one of those weekends.

We started out on Friday night to race the F1 in southern New Mexico. This is a great draft legal race, probably one of the most fun events in the entire state. You start off with a 400 yard swim, get out, run across the beach and do another 400 yard swim. Enter T1, get on your bike and head out for an 8 mile – draft legal – bike. If you are lucky enough you can get a group of folks that want to work hard and take turns pulling. Since there were a ton of outlaws at the race there wasn’t a problem hooking up with people. Then pulling into t2 you get to head out to the 4k flat run. Then just for good measure you get to do the bike and run one more time! That’s T3 and T4 for those that are a little transition challenged! The surprising thing about this race is the second bike always seems to be a bit faster than the first bike and the run is only a few seconds slower. This a great race and I would encourage everyone to give the format a try.

It seems I picked up some hardware at the race, first in the age group, third in the overall series (which still shocks me) and I received a city cup trophy. Three pieces of hardware from one race. That’s pretty cool. It must have been my lucky socks. Get it, Roswell, aliens… (you might have to blow up the picture a bit)

After the race and eating lunch with a bunch of Outlaws we headed up to Chama, where SWTriGal and her hubby H have cabin – In Northern New Mexico right next to the Colorado border. The next day we headed out to Race the Train into Colorado. Wow, it was a tough ride. We started out at an altitude of about 7500 feet and climbed the next 16ish miles to over 10,000 feet. This took a little over an hour (ride time) with a rest break and a Facebook update at the “Leaving New Mexico” sign. Oh it took about 23 minutes to come back down, yeah it was worth the climb J

Major thanks to Debi and Hartley for hosting us at their “cabin” for the weekend, Thanks!!!

A few Pic’s from the trip:

IronOutlaw showing his form at foosball – yeah he just scored a point – against DPR’s twins, BTW he lost the game!

At the “Leaving New Mexico Sign”

At the halfway point looking down the first climb

Here’s a little proof we beat the train!!

And a picture of my son, he was a super trouper, as we dragged him all over the state

I seem to be a little slow on the draw this morning. While making my morning oatmeal I couldn’t find the oatmeal container. It’s not in its usual place on top the fridge. Where is that darn thing? Did the kids move it? Maybe it fell and broke? Did the kids drop it and throw it away? Humm, where is it? Oh there it is, right where I put it three minutes ago, next to the pot, just sitting there waiting for me to measure out my gruel for the day. Wow, I need a little more recovery time.

This weekends fun began on Saturday with a nice 50 mile ride. It was supposed to be 65 but we turned around early to ride with the rest of the group with the intention of added on the extra miles at the end of the run. Weeelll, when we stopped to drop off the other folks, I wasn’t exactly excited about getting back on the bike so we stopped for coffee! Much better than riding don’t you think?

Later that day I followed up the ride with a 2500 yard swim, wow did that feel good, it’s been a week or so since I’ve been swimming so I needed to make up some yardage.

Later that day we walked around the Salsa Fiesta for a couple of hours and had one of the best quesadilla of all time. Of course, maybe I was hungry from working out twice and walking around for a couple of hours, nah.

Saturday night, was dessert at Flying star, yum, Strawberry Rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream. And good company to boot, what more can you ask for?

Sunday’s Workout was the run from hell! That is if you have to run up a mountain to get to hell. It seems the Dread Pirate is a little challenged when it comes to guestimating mileage and grade. Her 5 mile hill run turned out to be 8 miles of soleus bashing, quad busting 14% incline fun. The plan was to do the “Hill” run and then run another hour or so, right….I didn’t want to take another step right then so the next best move was to do what triathletes do so well, eat! Yep, we all voted for breakfast every except the Iron Maiden who keep to her plan and finished her run, kudos to her!
This is a picture of the "hill" we ran up, no, it's not the little hill in front. It's the big hill above and behind the clouds. Okay we didn't really run up the entire mountain, but we were above the clouds!

Being the type A personality I am meant that I was really feeling guilty about not putting in the extra miles. Soooo, I conned my son into going for a 6 mile ride in the bosque to keep me company on, yes, my second run of the day. Wow, did the legs feel heavy, what fun!

It turns out that I have good reason to be a little slow on the draw today. Yep, It was a tough weekend.

Running at night

We went on our first group run last night in preparation for the Colorado Relay. Some folks think it’s a good idea to actually train and prep for the races you are signed up for and with this race it’s probably a good idea to do some proper training. So off we went to run in the dark. I’m not sure running in the dark was much fun but it was sure nice to run with a group of folks. The trail sure looks a lot different at night, and it even sounds different, guess it’s all the night critters coming out. Even the coyotes sound mare eerie in the darkness.

This Sunday we get to run the foot hills and that should be a lot of fun! Oh wait, I think there was a reason I avoid ‘em. If I remember correctly they HURT, guess my memory will be refreshed on Sunday.

Darn, my legs are still tired from last weekend!

Dodging Millipedes

This weekend was the Chile Harvest Sprint Triathlon in Socorro. This is one of my favorite races of the Southwest Challenge series. The race is close to Albuquerque, only about 80 miles south and is a seeded time trial pool start. The great thing about this format is the field is spread pretty far apart by the time people hit the bike. And as far as I can tell there aren’t any packs or drafting. Normally a sprint race with 400 athletes would get pretty darn crowded on the bike.

The other thing I like about the seeded time trial start is you don’t know where your competition is. You can sort of keep an eye on them at the swim start but as soon as you get to the bike it’s very hard to judge where they are at, as a result you really have to hammer the whole course.

Biking through the desert this time of year, in the morning, brings out the millipedes. These critters are about 4-6 inches long and were all over the road on the bike course. I was weaving around trying not to run over them but there were a few already smashed. I’m sure when the brunt of the bikers came through the rest of the bugs didn’t stand much of a chance.

This is my first race using the new Outlaw time trial helmet. In fact it was the first time I really even buckled the helmet on. Note to self – adjust the straps before racing! The helmet is pretty cool and actually seemed to make a difference, at least I felt geekier so it must have made a difference.

The run was pretty miserable because I had all the little rocks in my shoes from T1. My bike was racked next to the curb and when I got out of the pool I went over to the bike and my feet were full of those darn little rocks. I wasted lots of time in T1 trying to get my feet clean but failed miserably. Oh well. My feet will heal, eventually.

Overall, The race was great, and I took some time off of my previous races. So I get a new course PR! Yeah! The swim was a bit slower as well as T1 and T2, but the bike and run were both faster. I placed 2nd in the Age group, with the first place guy just crushing me, 20th overall male.

Oh, did I mention this race was the State Club Championship? Which the Outlaws won! We have been the defending champions for the last two years! Guess its one more year with the target on our backs. Congratulations Outlaws! Keep up the hard work!

I'll see your 14 miles and raise you to black toe nails

The training for the Palo Duo ultra has officially started. I know this because I now have two black toe nails. It’s an amazing thing, every time I run my first 14 mile run I get two black toenails. Then it’s re-grow them for the next six months. Rinse and repeat.

The cool thing is that I get to gross out my kids when I finally peel off the dead nails. My son was watching me peel off the dead toe nails and he had the whole morbid curiosity thing going on. Like father like son.

Oh, and those aren't my feet pictured, just a picture I found on the web. But amazingly enough, I have the same two toes with black nails.

Yep the training has started!

Getting chicked

I was chicked again yesterday morning. This girl wasn’t really Michellie Jones (who can pass me in her sleep) but wow, did she have some quads. This is the second time she has passed me on my commute to work and she just blows by me like I’m standing still. She’s all smug on her pink bike with the aero bars, okay maybe I couldn’t see her smirk but I can imagine it. Granted I had just done a 6 mile run plus a leg workout and was about 8 miles into my commute, not to mention that I had the flu and knee surgery. Just kidding about the last two things but I have to do something for my crushed ego. :) It doesn’t bother me that I got chicked, it bothers me that I got passed! Darn it! It’s a commute not a race, maybe Wingman is rubbing off on me.

Anyway, I wonder who she is. Maybe one day I’ll be able to catch her and ask.

Tired Triathlete

Lots o’ stuff in the works!

This is what the schedule looks like for the next few months! I’m going to be busy!

Officially start training for IMAZ Start Training Aug 1st Race Date November 23rd
Socorro Chile Harvest Tri ; Club Championship August 9th
F1 Triathlon August 23rd
Colorado Relay 170 mile run September 12-13
Elephant Man Tri September 28th – First gig as a USAT official – If I pass the test!
Palo Duro Trail Run 50k October 18th
IMAZ November 23rd
Possibly the Las Vegas December 07 Depending on peer pressure!

So it looks like I’m making up for the lack of racing at the beginning of the year and have a very full schedule until the end of the year. The good thing is that I’ve maintained a pretty good level of fitness going into the IMAZ training so the initial work load shouldn’t be too bad. But, I have to admit, that I’m pretty nervous about the all the upcoming events and getting through them injury free. I’m mostly worried about my foot, when I started training for the Bataan Memorial Marathon it started acting up and I had to pull out of the run. I’m hoping that I’ve built up enough base miles so the increased work load won’t break anything. Time will tell.

Back in the saddle,

Between work and life there just hasn’t been much time for racing. I’ve been training from 12-18 hours per week so my fitness level feels pretty good. Hopefully I’ve had very few junk miles thrown in the mix. Lots of zone 2, low zone 3 training, a few interval sessions on the bike and run and weights once per week. I’ve dropped about 12 pounds since January, plus, I think I might finally have the asthma under control.

I was pretty nervous going into the race. I’ve been racing for the last 10 years or so and have been competing in various things for the last 20 years, and I’m still nervous about a little sprint tri. Go figure. Maybe it’s just because this was my first race in the last 7 months?

I donned my wet suit only to decide 5 minutes before the race to swim in just my skin suit. I’m still not sure of the wisdom of this move but T1 was blazing fast – very cool. The swim felt a little awkward because all of my open water swimming has been in a wet suit. Right at the turn around for the buoy I remember that, in fact, if I’m not wearing a wet suit I sink. Note for next time; don’t stop swimming when turning around a buoy.

The bike was great! I finally figured why my QR doesn’t climb very well. I always thought it was me but as it turns out my front chain rings are a 42-52, not the standard 39-53. Wow, what a difference, the hill coming out of t1 was actually not that bad to climb, and I had some extra speed coming down the hill, should have figured this out a long time ago!

I saw fellow Outlaw Wingman bobbing and weaving his way up the hill and decided that I really needed to pass him right away to set up a fun game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately he didn’t respond and I had to find other’s to play with. As it turns out I was catching the back half of the previous wave (Oh, did I mention that I’m now in the OLD man wave?) and couldn’t find any suitable targets so I decided to try and track down my arch nemesis and see if he would play. I put the pedal down and started passing lots and lots of folks but never my nemesis, Hummm, maybe I’m in front of him, naaa, he just did an IM and he looks like he’s in great shape, but still….I passed fellow outlaw Brian on the way into T2 (he was heading out of T2), since he’s not in the old geezer age group he got to leave 5 minutes before me. Ah, a new target.

Coming in to t2 I felt great, I’ve been pushing the bike, breathing hard but no tightness like normal, my legs felt great and I wanted to see what I could do on the run. After a bonk on my recovery run a few days before the race I was a little nervous about the run. Yeah, paranoid but true. I looked around and there was MuffinMan, right in T2 with me. Pretty cool, it looks like we are going to have a show down!

Heading out of t2 I decided I didn’t have much time to get my legs under me, Muffinman was right behind me and did I hear my arch nemesis coming into t2? Darn, he’s a lot faster runner than me. The pancake flat run is always hot and it’s tempting to stop at the aid station and take a nice drink of water but I could feel eyes on my back and Brian was still out front some place. I saw what I thought was an Outlaw uniform in the distance so I decided that I needed to catch him, who was it? I pushed hard until I met Brian around half way into the run and decided that the uniform wasn’t an Outlaw. At the turn around point I saw that MuffinMan was right behind me so there was no way I could relax, a little while later there was Paul, darn they are going to catch me! I pushed pretty hard on the way back and finally managed to shake them.

That was a hard race. The distance always lends itself to an all out effort and I was wasted but it sure felt good to be back in the saddle. Seven months is just too long to go without racing!

As it turns out I think I did PR for that course, 50 minutes flat, the previous two years I was at about 52.40ish. The official results won’t be out for a little while yet but still, the race felt great and even if I didn’t do a PR I had a great time.

Placed second in my age group, with the first place winner also the overall winner, darn those old fast men! I think I was in the top 10, maybe even the top 5, with a bunch of other Outlaws finishing in the top 10 and almost every outlaw taking home some metal.

Great race, now I can’t wait for the F1, maybe we can get another Outlaw pace line – Le Train Black? (sorry, I have a Le Train Blue, poster of the Postal time trial in my office)

Bottle tops:

Am I the only one with this problem? I have about 10 cycling bottles that I use over the course of the week. All but two of the bottles have black lids so every time I want to use a water bottle I have to try and match up the bottles with the lids. Why can’t the manufacturers use the same bottle top diameter and thread pattern? At this point I’m not even sure if I have the correct number of bottles for the number of lids.

I think I’ve been training to much….

More bike commuting

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve posted! Training, working, kids and life sure take up a lot of time.

Now that the kids are out of school I’ve been commuting on my bike about 4 days per week and just driving in on Monday. Generally Mondays my legs are burnt toast and I just don’t feel like getting on the bike so I enjoy the drive in and wish I was on my bike – pretty strange huh?

Thought I would throw out a couple more interesting things I’ve noticed while bike commuting.

A few weeks ago I was waiting at a light behind a lady in a semi beat up ford truck, she was puffing away at a cigarette, tossed the butt out the window, hung up her cell phone and started vigorously picking her nose. The only thing I could think of was a bug or something flew up her nose and she was trying to get it out. The light turns green and she guns it trying to make it past the next light. She didn’t make it, but that really didn’t bother her because she just ran the light, fully red. Wow, these are the people that scare me.

I’ve been cut off a few more times by people trying to get around me to make a right hand turn. These folks speed way up to get around you and then hit the brakes in front of you while making the turn way to fast, tires screeching, and me yelling at them. And to boot, I’m generally in a bike lane. Yep, more scary people, they saved maybe 4 seconds or so.

There are some crazy folks commuting on bikes, people without a helmets, with sandals on, and riding in traffic, sometimes all at the same time. Wow, talk about pushing the odds.

On one of my Monday drive days I was repeatedly cut off by a cyclist. I pretty much know the ride down Lead goes and I was giving the cyclist lots of room. This guy refused to play nicely, was inconsiderate of other folks on the road as was just generally a pain. Sure hope I’m not like that when I ride!

When you drive in a car you don’t really get to see how fast or slow people accelerate from a stop sign or light, when you are on a bike you can really get a feel for how people drive. It’s amazing how fast some people accelerate, they must make a lot of money to pay for all the gas they are wasting. Wha'ts $4.00 a gallon to these folks?

We now have seven steady bike commuters in the office! Seven out of thirty, not too shabby! I really have to hand it to the bike commuters. Most of them are recreational riders and for them, a twenty mile round trip is a whole lot of work. Sometimes it takes them more than an hour to make it ten miles home or to work, that takes a lot of dedication. Kudos to them.

My new love...

Okay, is this weird or what? My dish washer has been freaking out, grinding, gurgling and not cleaning well for about a year. It works fine if I pre-wash all the dishes and turn it on after everyone goes to bed.

Well, Saturday morning I decided to go to Appliance liquidators just to check out their dishwashers. One of the owners helped me choose a model and quoted me a really good price, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it. The new dishwasher has a disposal, time delay, heater, low water use and it’s really big inside.

The installation was very easy and it was up and running in about 1.5 hours. I decided to run a load of dishes through it and Wow! This thing is quiet, so quite that I had to check on it several time just to be sure it was on and working. How exciting is that? Okay, so is it weird to want to have dirty dishes so I can run them through the dish washer and marvel at how quiet and efficient it is? I love this thing!

Oh, if you are looking for new appliances, checkout appliance liquidators. The dishwasher was about $200 cheaper that it was at Lowes.

Okay, so maybe I need to get a life.

Adventures of my bike commute

I’ve been steadily commuting on my bike for about a month now. For me, that means anywhere from 2 to 4 times per week, and only during the nice seasons. Winter commuting on a bike just isn’t fun, and it’s a bit dangerous. I’m not sure how some of the folks in the colder/snowier states commute all year long.

So I thought I would recap my month a bit and let you know what’s happened.

- I Almost got hit by a lady turning right in front of me, while I was in the bike lane. She actually sped up to pass me and then cut me off, this was all within about 20 feet. What’s up with that?

- I found a very nice cell phone and thought about keeping it, but of course, I called the guy and returned it.

- I get to go through the construction site on my normal route home, instead of taking the detour. It’s kind of fun watching the day to day progress.

- I’m down to filling my truck up every other week now. This means I’m saving about $60 over the course of two weeks. Nice lunch money

- Since I’m “trapped” at work I bring my lunch, which is better for me than eating out. Hummm, what to do with that $120 per month…

- The days I bike commute I get to leave early, so I can miss the traffic, you understand…

- The wind is my friend. With several opportunities to fight 30mph head winds on the way home. My legs should be stronger. Of course my lungs are now full of sand so it’s an even wash.

- I have come across several ladies on their bikes, with no helmet on, chatting on their cell phones. Folks can't drive a car much less a bike while talking on a phone.

- Ah, extra protein! The gnats and bugs are starting to come out and I’ve already eaten my share.

- It’s amazing that I’m still seeing the same folks that have been commuting that last several years. I wonder if they recognize me?

- Ran into the cement retaining wall while I was trying to figure out what was swimming in the irrigation channel next to the trail. Never did figure it out but I did leave a good part of my knuckle on the wall.

- We actually had a bit of a traffic jam on the trail! At the Montano turn off a bunch of us actually had to stop so we wouldn’t run into each other. How cool is that. Lots of folks riding their bikes to work these days.

Getting back into something

Isn’t it funny how we are always getting back into things? A few years ago when that virus took me out for three months I had to get back to being a triathlete. Last year, after my foot surgery, I was getting back into shape. This year, after my cold I was getting back into running again. Oh, I haven’t been to yoga for 2 weeks now, guess I’ll need to get back into that. Bike? What’s a bike? Guess I’ll need to really start riding again sometime. Weights? Haven’t lifted one in 2 months. I know it’s good for me and will help me be a better athlete, but I just don’t have the time.

It doesn’t end with our active lives. We are diverted in our everyday lives as well. Kids, significant others (or lack thereof), projects, jobs, this list goes on and on. You all know what I’m talking about.

At what point do all these things make us who we are? Are we still defined as triathletes if we have been focusing on landscaping our yards and have only been working out 5 hours per week? When do we lose the vaulted title of lifestyle athlete? After a month, two months, a year, of not competing? How many diversions will it finally take to give up being a triathlete? Are we afraid that our most recent diversion will be the one that breaks the camels back and we will be transformed into some couch potato with dusty carbon bikes hanging in the garage? Maybe we will turn into one of those people who can remember when they used to race and be in good shape but just can’t remember why we stopped being an athlete.

Maybe discipline is the 5th discipline of triathlon? Without it, the first thing that came along would derail us and we would forever be held captive by that soft sofa and big screen TV.

Okay then, enough rambling, it must have been a really boring afternoon run if it made me think of stuff like this!

Can’t wait to get my new Garmin 305. Then I can get back to timing my runs….

Cool program run by the City of ABQ

This is an interesting free program sponsored by the City of Abq. I’ve never used it but I did come close during last year’s monsoon season. It’s nice to know there’s a free way to get home just incase of an emergency. You need to register and give someone else’s name to verify that you use alternative transportation at least three days per week. After that, if you get stuck, just call the number and a cab will pick you up and drop you off at your abode. Sounds like a great deal to me, and it’s free, did I mention that?

http://www.cabq.gov/transit/grh1.html

How cool is this?

Thursday it was just beautiful out and a few folks started commuting into work on their bikes, which made me extremely jealous!

It’s taken me a few months to figure out how to get to work without being killed by the insane downtown drivers but I think I’ve finally figured it out (hope I didn’t just seal my fate, knock on wood)!

So, being jealous, having figured out my route, and with a projected weather of beautiful I decided to commute in on my bike.


Thursday night I decided to configure my new commuter with lights and make sure every thing was working correctly. Well…. The front headlight won’t fit because the new commuter sports an oversized front bar – Darn it, and the light didn’t come with different sized mounting brackets. Looks like the kiddo will have a new light on his shinny new mini mesa. Okay, I can live without the front light for now. it will still be light when I come home. Now to mount the tail light, humm….Where are those darn mounting brackets? After an hour of searching I decided to just Velcro the light on, okay that will work. Wonder if the fenders will fit? I know I’m going to get rained on, maybe not tomorrow but it will rain. Darn it, the fenders won’t fit the new bike, dang.

Okay, tires are all aired up, water in the water bottle, saddle pack has a spare and air canisters,. backpack is packed with a few extra things, toe warmers are on the shoes, helmet is dusted off, and clothes are ready to go.

The morning commute went really well, very little traffic and life is good.

I put my bike in the designated parking area, located inside the rear door and get changed, in the locker room.

Did I mention that one of the reasons I took the new job is because it’s a very bike friendly work environment? Around 9 out of a possible 30 people commute on their bikes during the summer! Wow, can you imagine if every company could boast that almost 30% of their employees commute by bike?

After talking to folks about the bike and commute I settle in to my normal work day. Pretty soon the big boss shows up in my office bearing a nice spa towel and a company logo water bottle.

He tells me he’s heard it was my first day commuting and I get a new towel to use in the shower (yes we have a shower at work!) and a water bottle. He goes on to ask me what he and the company can do to help encourage people to commute on their bikes and he’s always open for suggestions. This isn’t just lip service either. He commutes regularly, including most of the winter, on his bike.

How cool is that?