Lifetime Fitness Tri Minneapolis and Chisago Lakes Half Iron

The Bike at Lifetime Courtesy of Christine Wood

Minnesota has done it again. I raced the last two weekends at top notch events that people from around the country travelled to. But they were both here in Minnesota and I was able to enjoy sleeping in my own bed the night before each. There's not many places that have a summer line-up of races like the upper Midwest. If only global warming would fix the winters.

In my last update I said I feel good about my fitness. Good news, I still feel good about where my fitness is at right now, especially after these last two weeks. Looking back at last year, I realize that Lifetime was the peak of my season. I was surprised at the time to finish in 1:56:28 and it was the first big race I had won. But after Lifetime last year I felt worn down and ended up having mediocre races during championship time at Age Group Nationals and Hy-vee. This year I won the amateur race at Lifetime again and bettered my time by a few seconds to 1:56:09, but the real difference is that I didn't have to stretch for that time this year. I kept my full training schedule through the week prior and still felt strong in the race. I had to skip a few races earlier in the year to keep my schedule in balance, and I think it's going to pay off now with a few more weeks of solid training and some great races at Age Groups, Hy-vee and World Du Championships.

Lifetime itself was a fantastic race as always. The race director, Dave Schutz, is world class and all you have to do is look at the list of top tier pros who came to a race with relatively little prize money to know that race is impeccably run. Dave also runs Trinona, which is the best destination race in the Midwest in my opinion.

Jake Rhyner who is a very fast amateur from La Crosse, WI was coming up for the race and I told him that if he didn't want to stay in a seedy Econolodge hotel in North Minneapolis he was welcome to stay with me. Jake was right on my heels for the entire race at St. Anthony's and if I hadn't felt particularly good that day I think he would have run me down. It was fun providing a “home-stay” for another athlete for the race.

Photo of Devon Palmer and his droopy mustache without his permission,
courtesy of Kerry Yndestad and YndeCam.

In the race itself I swam so-so, and had to make up with a strong bike after coming out of the water about two minutes down. Matt Payne and I were back and forth on the bike the whole time and no matter how hard I rode he just kept zipping past me everytime I slacked on the effort. He is in killer shape this year. Hoppping off the bike I had a fairly slow run in 34 minutes, but I could tell that I just didn't have any pop in my legs and didn't want to force it.

After the awards Claire and I headed over to Devon's house for a little cookout action. After a good hard race hot dogs and beer taste so good, especially when they're free. If you haven't see any pictures by the way, Devon has grown a mustache that, although I would argue doesn't have the same panache as mine, is superior in size and length. (Insert inappropriate comment here).

Lifetime Results: http://www.peaktiming.com/2012LTF/

Chisago Lakes Half Iron Recap:

The race yesterday at Chisago was very long, and I got lucky again this year with mild temperatures and cloud cover for most of the race. Gloria West is the race director, and through Midwest Sports Events puts on a full line of triathlons and running races throughout the year. As a poor person I think I really appreciate Gloria's race because it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. I was looking into doing the Boulder 70.3 race around this time, but just couldn't stomach the almost $300 entry fee. This weekend I got to race a full half with all the support I could need for only $100, plus I won a nice chunk of the prize purse and ended the day in the black. Thank god for that, tickets to Vermont for Age Groups were $600, ouch.

The swim start at Chisago was a mosh pit. I started as hard as I could and barely avoided getting beaten in the melee. David Thompson, Alex Hooke and Chicago pro Jared Woodford took off and I caught sight of Matt Payne and female pro Jackie Arendt off to my right. I surged hard to get on Arendt's feet, knowing that she would outswim me but I just couldn't close the gap. After the first turn buoy she slowly pulled away from me, but I worked hard to keep Matt in visual contact.

Matt Payne and I before Chisago courtesy of Kerry Yndestad and YndeCam. 

I'm glad I did because the bike was long and it helped to have somone to ride against. Last year I didn't have the bike strength to race 56 miles and executed poorly on pacing and hydration. This year I still don't quite have the strength to really race the full 56 miles, I had to back off the pace the last 10 miles, but I executed on hydration and was much smarter about pacing. Minnesota's best DUI lawyer Harvey Skees told me a few days before the race the best advice he had ever heard for racing a half was: Your legs should be burning, but your lungs shouldn't. Is this actually the best advice? I don't know, but I turned bigger gears this year, kept my heart rate much lower, and felt much better. Last year when I rode past 30 miles I was seriously questioning whether I would have to coast the last 10 miles of the bike. This year riding past 30 miles I caught site of Alex and Jared Woodford in the distance and felt good enough to put in some hard riding to try and catch them.

I didn't catch them. However, I really enjoyed the ride. The course was different this year and close to 52 of the 56 bike miles were absolutely perfect, freshly paved roads. Here in Minnesota smooth roads are more precious than diamonds, especially riding a tri bike hard. On top of that the roads wound through some really beautiful Minnesota farmland and river valley. On top of that, this year I was riding my Gear West B2 with Di2 shifting. On top of that, Gear West set me up with a new Bell Javelin aero helmet, so I'm sure I cut through the air like a knife. At the end of the day my normalized power for the ride was 254 watts(3.6w/KG). This is a big jump for me. I don't have last year's power numbers from this race, but to put it into perspective at St. Anthony's last year which is a 40k bike, I averaged 250 watts. If you want to see my power profile leave a comment and I'll e-mail it to you.

David is fast enough that he doesn't have to worry
about outrunning anyone.
Photo By Kerry Yndestad and YndeCam

The run this year was surprisingly similar to last year. I got off the bike in 4^th, with Matt right on my heels. David was already passing the first mile marker down the road and was out of reach for me. Alex Hooke was about 45 seconds ahead of me and Jared Woodford was 30 seconds or so ahead of him. I left transition cautiously and didn't push the pace at all for the first 5 miles of the race. Last year I felt great heading into the run at 5:30's and then imploded in spectacular fashion at 8 miles. I more or less walked the last two home. This year I again hadn't run farther than 10 miles before the race, and that was only once last Monday, and it felt like a really long run. Around 8 miles I caught up to Woodford and didn't say anything. I didn't know him and didn't want him to know that I could fall to pieces at any moment. He stuck with me heading back into town, but I could tell from the first half of the race that I was better on the hills and started to put a little bit of space inbetween us on the gradual climb back into the neighborhood streets the run starts and ends on. I passed 8 miles and still felt decent, which was a relief. I got to 9 and was worried about Woodford still only a few steps behind me, I could hear him breathing, but told myself to be patient and not pick up the pace yet. It was a smart move, I got to 10 and started to feel the day all coming to a head. Getting to 11 was very tough and my form started to get sloppy and shambling by 12. After 12 it was a very slow last mile and I walked down the steep hill heading into transition. I still crossed the line in 2^nd, and even had a semblance of a smile on my face. I'm looking forward to building on my bike strength this winter and doing a few more halves next year, it's a grueling race and doesn't have the excitiment of an olympic distance, but it's still fun.

Chisago Half Results: http://itiming.com/searchable/index.php?results=chisago12

Now, it's nothing but solid triaing until Age Group Nationals. Then the taper begins and two weeks later is Hy-vee where I'll be racing once again to try and win a Mini Cooper. I have three weeks after that for full taper and some speed work on the track and then I'm off to Luxembourg, France and Germany to race at Duathlon World's, hopefully win some of their monopoly monies, and then enjoy a season ending beer and schnitzel at Oktoberfest.

Wish me luck!

Trinona and Minneman Recaps

Three weeks ago I raced at Trinona for the first time. It was a great time. Their race slogan is “The World's Biggest Little Triathlon.” Even though there is only 900 or so people in the race, Dave Schutz puts on a top quality race. It helps that Winona MN is a great little town in the gorgeous “driftless” zone of southern Minnesota. Because glaciers didn't cover this area in the last ice age there are real hills and the race takes you up one of them, it's a solid mile plus climb right in the middle of the bike that leaves you winded for a good while. This was my first race back since working out some form kinks and doing some strength re-structuring and I was pleased with the second place to Thompson. Matt Payne, Alex Hook and I pushed each other on the bike which is always fun.

It was an actually hot day, with the heat index in the upper 90's and coming off the bike 3+ minutes behind David I knew I wasn't going to do better than second. That may have been a good thing though. I took the run easy and instead of feeling zapped for the next week like I sometimes do I was able to keep right on training.

Best part of Trinona: the classic drive-in just off the lake with homemade rootbeer and $1.50 hamburgers. I don't think I've ever tasted anything as delicious as that float after such a hot race.

Results: http://www.mtecresults.com/race/show/799

Running at Minneman courtesy of Kerry Yndestad and YndeCam

This weekend I did the inaugural olympic distance Minneman race. Like Trinona, the bike was longer than standard, about 26 miles, and the swim was a little short, but it's a very fast course with no hills in it. It seemed hotter than it was, only in the 80's. I felt better on the swim than I have before which is always a nice way to start a race. Devon Palmer went way off course on the swim and I almost followed his pack but realized the mistake quickly enough to only tack on 20 or 30ish seconds to my swim. I think if the swim was a full 1500, and I hadn't gone off course my time would have been somewhere in the low 20 minute range. One of my big goals this season is to swim in the 19 minute range for the olympic distance and I'm making progress. Sometimes it's frustrating and seems like I'll never get there. But I always remember that when I started running, it took everything I had just to break 5 minutes in the mile, and after a few years of training I would run 5k's at 4:35 pace. Rome wasn't built in a day and I'll keep at it in the pool.

I wanted to bike fast, especially on this flat course, and decided to really push the pace on the second of the two bike loops. Looking at my power data afterwards I'm happy to see that I averaged 276 watts (3.9/kg) for the course. It's hard to tell because the course is long, but this was strong enough to average 26.6mph. If it had been the standard 24.8 miles my bike split would have been somewhere just under 56mins. It's good to see my bike times continue to drop. Getting in good interval workouts now and again is really helping with the strength I've lacked on the bike until this year. Now I can get back to doing some run workouts to get my legs back under me. I didn't feel very quick on the run, but after putting in solid miles and bike workouts the past couple weeks it's not a big concern. There's still plenty of time until Du World's this September.

Results: http://www.pigmantri.com/jmsracing/results12/mnman12b.html

Up Next: Lifetime Fitness Tri in Minneapolis.

These squiggly lines show my power profile in the race. Unfortunately I am not tech savvy enough to get the axis labels to show.