Cinco Ranch recap..

Short of it: I was not listed on the results page so not sure if my chip even worked for something happened, sucks! UPDATE: RESULTS ARE UP!! YAHOO..

#24/54 Clyds Group

Swim : #47/54 - 11:17.8 time

T1: 2:13.8

Bike: #17/54 - 52:57.7 time - 21.5 mph

T2: 1:28.4

Run: #35/54 - 28:25.9 time - 9:28/M

Overall Time: 1:36:23.7

Better than Garim Data!! Hell Ya!!

All I have is Garmin Data for Bike (18.36miles in 56 mins, avg. pace 19.6mph. Total Zone 5!) and run (3 miles @ 9.52/mi pace, Zone 4-5).

Will wait on numbers to see if the numbers show up on the results this week. So let's get to recapin`

To begin with my buddy, John from A-twn came down for this race as this was his 2nd triathlon so he was little nervous going into it. As we got to the race site parking was Totally Jacked at the lots of the schools they used were all full and we ended up parking in the street which actually turned out to be better as we were closer to race site.

After getting marked and set up in transition it was chip pick up and bathroom time. All pretty uneventful. As I we were driving in and parking I saw PinkGuruGal! and knew I would have to catch up with her sometime after the race but as I was walking to chip pick up I ran into Jane! and first thing I was ask is where is her new Guru Bike! If you have not seen this thing you need to jump over to her blog to check it out! It's so freakn Badass!! I told her I would stop by her rack and check it out and I did so later and about drooled all over it! If it was so small for me it would be even better.

Swim: 400 meter technical course as it was in a small lake and you had to swim in a funny "S" type shape. Anyway, Clydesdale's are the last group to go with the Relays and Athena's, I think there was about 125 of us. First off, JT and John aligned ourselves on the left of the pack which would turn out to be a mistake as the first turn is about 100 meters out and to the LEFT.

It wasn't all out bashing but there was lots of pushing and bumping and smacking. Someone tried to swim over JT but that was not going to happen and I held my position did some sort of bootybump while swimming and knocked them off of me, Ya, SCORE, suka! About half way in the swim of the "S" I was still on the left and I hit the bottom of the lake with my left arm, WTF! Turns out it was just really shallow there and several people were actually walking, crawling along so JT did the same and stayed with them. After 25 meters it was back to swimming, make the final "S" turn to the right and I was finally clear of people 300 meters in, geez, great. Last 100 was just a sprint really to get out.

T1: nutn' exciting here. I saw JD heading out as I came running in, Damn!

Bike: Once mounted I got settled in and checked my Garmin which I had in my bento box and I was in Zone 5! Yikes. I thought I would just keep going and current pace it I would settle in and it would drop to Z4, never happened. I settled in but no drop unless I backed off and that wasn't happening. I was passing people and trying to strap my Garmin on my wrist and that just wasn't happening either so I managed to shove it down in the top of the aero bottle sitting on the yellow spongy thingy. So I am passing a lot of people by mile 7 and this continues for a while, I was really jacked as I passed a lot during the whole bike! At mile 13, I see JD! Suka` I got his ass, I kick it up just a little bit to really him in and when it was time I yell out "Yakima on your LEFT!" Ha! (from previous posts the bet for the Yakiam bike rack) JD, laughs and I pass. So now I am passing more bikers and I see these 2 up ahead and this fuker is totally drafting, I mean he is like pace line drafting! I finally catch them and yell "Hey #44, this isn't a draft legal race!" and I pass by. There was a point on the road where the shoulder began to narrow and if you are familiar, this road has those perpendicular 3" grates cut into the road in case you start to drive on the shoulder and it makes that loud buzzing noise to alert you, well, as the shoulder began to narrow I was coming up fast on this guy and yelled on your left. He didn't move and so I Yelled again! No I am almost right on him and no moving and he had room so I decided to drive over the grates, so I braced, stood up and over I went passing him and again yelling more like dick, ON YOUR LEFT! As I finished crossing over the grates I heard this noise and something just hit the road, I knew immediately what it was and grabbed the brakes! It was my Garmin!!! Then the dude I just passed yells out "Ahha, see what you get!" I quickly bust a U-turn as everyone is now passing me and JD yells out, Hurry your ass up! I grab the Garmin and put it in my jersey pocket and take off. This other guy asks me what I dropped and say my Garmin and he agrees it was a no brainier to stop and get it but now my rhythm is off and I have to rest and get back in the groove and my mission is to catch JD again and then loud mouth for talking shit! I catch Mr. Mouth and as I come hauling ass around him, I yell "Ha, that's what I get is on your LEFT! You're just too slow!" and really fly by him to make the statement! Now focus on JD. I finally pull back up to him and yell "How bout that for recovery, I want that Yakima, on your left!" He yells out to hammer down and I go around. By now I was already on heading back and I crossed this intersection and this volunteer directing traffic shouts out at me "#815, PUT YOUR HEAD DOWN AND ASS IN THE AIR AND CRACK THEM PEDAL'S, GO GO GO !! So I did!!!! Finished out the bike and hit T2

T2: As I was changing in T2, I could hear my peeps yelling out me to move it. Someone yelled to hurry my ass up and put those shoes on and I heard Lauren, I think, yelling.. Come on Vigil (last name) move it! it was kind of funny really! It was exciting tho to hear some peeps yelling for ya!

Heading out of T2 I see Liz snapping pictures, which by the way all these are from her, Thank Liz!! (ps. She is also new in Bloggerville so stop on by and show some Tri-Luv, she got a good Cancun 70.3 recap)

Run: I started out right at a 9:30/min pace and was sucking wind for sure. I slowed down and got passed a couple of times but not by anyone in my Clyds. I was an out and back course so after the 1.5 mile turn around I was feeling pretty good and using the ice water to cool me down as it was now a little hot. I saw JD, and was about 1/2 mile ahead. Once I hit the 2 mile marker I knew it was time to get back to the 9:30 mark as I had slowed. About 3/4 mile left a Clyds. passed me pretty quickly and I thought shit, I won't be able to stay with him but just stay close. Well 25 meters in front of me he stopped and walked and I passed him again. I stayed ahead of him and then my left hamstring started to cramp, sloooooooooowy. I didn't know to stop or just keep running, as I slowed it seemed to get worse and finally I just stopped holding on to it. These guys (you can see them in the picture just over my Left arm with all the kids on bikes) started yelling at me..DUDE you have less than 100 meters left get your ass running, cramp or not!! come on!! and the were right next to me yelling!! You could not see the finish line as there was a slight bend in the road. When I first stopped I looked back to see where Clyds was and he was 75 meters or so back but the piker started running when he saw me cramp. I started running and he passed me kind of in a sprint and so I kicked it to stay with him (picture of his arm, blk shirt). I then pulled right next to him and we could see the Finish about 50 meters out and I yelled "IT'S ON! So we both took off sprinting with everyone yelling! I got just a bit of ahead of him and then he pulled a bit ahead and I totally kicked it all out and got him right at the line, or so I think as the results will determine! But it was so cool! and then he says, Hey thanks that was great!! as we both could bearly breath!

Overall, it was a great race even if the swim was goofy. It tells me that I need more Swim practice if I expect to make CdA a descent showing. Bike was great as I felt good even in a high HR Zone and my run has come along ways as well. All that weekend training has been paying off and will need to continue to pay off as Canyon Lake is 4 weeks away!

At the end of the race I was able to meet up with PinkGuruGal and Jane and let me tell you, they are just the coolest gals and I am glad I know them and look forward to tracking there IM training for Austria over the next year!

Rockon`

UPDATE:....It' so Yakima On!!

UPDATE: 9/28/07.. so it seems the higher powers are scared of JT's all out balls to the walls go for broke puke while your bike/run determination to beat FNG that today it was annoucned that in order to win the Bike rack I have to place top 5 clydsdale division. So with that I checked last years results but it was 500 meter swim, not 400 like this year and a 12 mile bike not 19 miles like this year and with some number crunching it's still going to be tough!!

so stay tuned...!!!

9/26.....First off I want to thank everyone for the insight and encouragement to go for the 70.3 and I totally would if $$ were not an issue right at this time. I feel it would have been a great challenge in the short amount of time I have and it would have just been cool! But at this time I will have to settle for the free registration for the Olympic distance at Canyon Lake called the TX-Tri Championship Series.

This will be a great race as well, first off it will be a wetsuit swim with the water currently at 70* and expected to be about 67* on race day! Then second will be the nice change/challenge of the hills as I GPS'd this course and it has some good climbers for the bike and run and third will be my ability to kick the crap outta my 2 fellow co-workers who have not done ANY Hill training, one of them in about 3 months, the other (FNG-fukn new guy) None at all as this is his first season of tri's. So with basically 2 good weekends for training, as this weekend we all have the sprint tri, then next 2 weeks of good training and then it will be race time gives me the advantage not only on the hills but on the run as my long runs are around 10 miles and theres 3 and FNG, is about 4-5. It will be fun!

So here is the race shirt: What you all think?

I am not too sure at this time and will wait for the real thing and see how it looks.

Now let's talk about what's up for Grabs for JT at this Cinco Ranch Sprint Triathlon this weekend.

I was told that if I can out right beat FNG, I win a Yakima Backswing 4 bike rack! Now this is going to take some serious strategy to win as my swim is about 2 mins slower than FNG and he is about 3 mins faster per mile on the run! But the bike I "think" I can out hold him by 3 mph. So after crunching the numbers it's going to come down to about 1-2 mins I need to pick up or he needs to lose! I was originally not going to go all out for this sprint but once the bike rack came into play I have thought differently. Overall, I need to bike 20-21mph and run 9:45ish to beat his scrawny ass. And I saw that because FNG only weighs about 14o so JT is 65 lbs heavier! I will try my best and hope for his worst. He does have a history of calf craps on the run after biking and that was with shorter 12 miles bikes, this race is 19 miles! No promises but just hammer down and go for it!

Now the down side right now is that I feel a cold coming on and took the afternoon off to try and get some rest and knock it out. I even bought all these natural products to help. All that means is not training for the next few days or until race day for that matter! Until then....

rockon`

Swim Clinic and possible 70.3, help?

So it turns out that there is no tracking available for 70.3 Cancun but I just got word that Liz finished at 6:19, Lauren just under 6:30, Geoff speed boy 4:54, and turn out Ryan with a stress fracture must have miraculously heeled and finished in 6:10! Congratulations to ALL!!!

In other news, I went to a Swim clinic this morning that I registered to about 2 weeks ago with our local triathlon club. On deck was Emmit Hines from the H2Ouston Swim club who has worked and coached with Terry Laughlin for many years. There was 15 of us that all jumped in the pool warmed up in about 4 different lanes and then it was out of the water to wait in line to get video taped. We each would swim 75 yards and be taped from the side and head on. It went by really quick and I was the 5th one in the water.

Afterwards it was dry off and time to watch the video of everyone. There was a lot to discuss and different exercises to try while on land. Everyone was asked what they saw in there video that looked wrong or funny to you. For me it, it was clear that my back legs were dragging due to hips dragging, due to head position. Emmit said for every 2" of head lifting (not rotation) translates to 4-6" of hip drag which translates to 12" of leg drag!!

I also noticed that my nose is pointing forward towards the wall while swimming instead of facing straight down towards the bottom of the pool floor. I had good rotation on my right but he would like to see more hip rotation, esp. on my left along with the left arm pulling instead of windmill action and pushing water straight down to the floor. So overall I have some things to work on but so did all 14 others.

It's amazing to see how many swimmers hips/legs drag more than they feel or think. I think there was 2 swimmers that were really horizontal in the water but had other things to work on.

So now I was thinking about signing up with Coach Hines at the swim club which costs $66/mo. and there is a $98 USMS fee/club fee annually so it would be prorated, what you all think?

Or I was excited to think that maybe I could sign up for IronStar 70.3 in 5 weeks? What you think?

Here's the break down I thought about: My longest swim of 1500m was July 15th, regular weekly swims have been about 1200m. Longest bike of 65 miles was 5 weeks ago with weekly long ride at 30 miles, and longest run last week of 10.5 miles. Humm, sounds like I am not that far off but putting it all together in 5 weeks with a Sprint tri next weekend at 400mS/19mB/3mR might be a little tough. I'll wait to see what the consensus is of bloggerville.

This weeks training will continue M-Th with Friday off and light stuff on Saturday as the sprint is Sunday.

rockon`

The peeps have left the US..

So here is to the Ironman Cancun folks this weekend!

Some of which are Coach Liz #227, (check out her blog as she is new to Bloggerville) Lauren #261, Geoff #260, and Ryan, well poor Ryan ended up with a stress fracture on the fibula, so no racing for him, he is in charge of picture taking and drinkning, in no particular order! HA.

Good luck guys and can't wait to track you on Sunday!

rockon`

smiles and rides

Well of course we gotta start with a self photo taken while riding in aero position.. take Notice of the Right GUN! and the Smile, ha. And here is Lauren, Smiling and crankn` along. She along with Liz (below) are heading off to Cancun 70.3 this week and it will be Lauren's first half! Kick ass gal!

Then we have Liz, Smiling, on her souped up Kuota Kalibur(right pic).

And here is the dynamic duo just after Liz made a u-turn in the road and decided to put some luv on her Kalibur and laid it down and landed on her ass. A slip I guess, I saw her go down but couldn't really tell what she did, mostly lose her balance. I pulled up and said hey, you ok? or da the hell with you, how's the bike? lol.. luckily she was TipTop.

So training this weekend was 10.6 mile run on Saturday, 6 before the TNT training group run. It was a good long slow day although my left Achilles tendon was achy all day long. Then today, as you can see by the pictures it was a 30 mile easy bike that was all flat and with a nice tail wind at times letting me cruise at 25.7 mph! but the wind had it's revenge head on dropping me down to 14 mph. Overall it was good to experience it. Then it was a T2 change and a 2 mile run to loosen up the legs. And the Weather! It was a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! It got a little hotter later in the day but we we're done by then.

So tomorrow is swim day with weights and biking later in the afternoon once again. So I'm off to sleep as 4:30am comes early!

rockon`

busy week.. Order it up..

Dang, I just love reading all the race recaps!! Thanks Everybody.. keeps me going and something to look forward to next year!

What a busy week and glad its the weekend, although there will be no sleeping around this weekend as it is busy too but with fun cool stuff!

First training this week has been steady with running, a couple of bikes and a swim/weight! Yes, I made it to the pool to push about 800 meters, whew, it was weird, easy but not, ya know. Anyway, for this weekend, tomorrow it's 6 mile run pre-TNT group and then 4 with the group so gonna hit double digits! Yea! Then the rest of the day will be spent tooling around on the motorcycle with my bro-n-law.

I also have it one the agenda to clean up Fuji, aka Dino as he needs a serious detailing.

Sunday, will be out once again early before the roosters and riding a 6 mile loop about 4 times. Then the rest of the day will be getting ready for a Birthday Party! What, B-day you say? Yes, it's my daughters 16th..on Tuesday and we're doing the family thing as her friends are taking her out Saturday night.. Wow, 16.. I came into her life when she was 10 and it has been a totally awesome and interesting, life teaching for both us since then. I love her.

So to some cool triathlon stuff. I have this 2007 Fuji Aloha 1.0 bike and for those of you who make know or have it as well, the manufacture some how messed up the geometry on the bike for a "TRIATHLON" so I don't have to get all technical and stuff, trust me it is. Several local tri stores have spoken with Fuji and they messed it up. According to specs it says 76 but with all the tweaking and moving seat forward and such I am at 76.2. most it will go as the factor seat is at it's limits. Anyway, Zero has designed a carbon fiber aero seat post for the fuji and for about 200 it will take you all the way to 78* or more. So you one would think would that be a big difference?? Well, JD, who also has the Fuji changed his out and just got it back after a new fit yesterday. Now granted we have been riding on and off together for a few months and have stayed pretty much the same pace, but not after the Zero, He dropped me like a dirty sock!! WTF? He gained almost 3 mph from the change in geometry and feels much more comfortable. I was pissed as you could imagine after trying to keep up with him and HR going totally outta zone and my legs were screaming! So when I hit the car and drove him, I called Tri On The Run and ordered that damn post! Aghhrrrr.. not like I wanted to spend the money but if it makes that much of a difference I'm in.. even if I only get 1-2 mph faster, comfort is worth the price.

So stay tuned for a new little look on Dino.. !!!

Have a great Friday night and weekend!!

rockon`

What an IMW Day!

As I woke up Sunday morning my Internet connection was down!!! Aghhh! IMW! The swim has started! I'm missing it! I jumped on the phone with tech support from the Philippines and after 30 mins I was up and running.

After logging in and getting all set up I got my breakfast, coffee, and started talking with the Bigun who was also already watching.

I then proceeded to spend 14 1/2 hours watching IMW and tracking fellow bloggers. Can you believe that! 14.5 hours! Oh wait, I did step out for like 30 mins but other than that I was there walking around the house doing this or that with my laptop. It was great!

The coverage was somewhat lame at times and Bigun and myself were crackin jokes about what was being shown and it seem to make the time pass. Once the pro's came in it was only a few more hours till the main AG'ers started coming.

I am happy for all the people out there working so hard to finish, congratulations! And thank you to all the Volunteers for helping all day long! You all Rock!

During this time throughout the day I was able to update my planned training for the next 3 weeks leading up to my sprint race, Cinco Ranch.

I can't wait to read all the race recaps from Iron Wil, Greyhound, IM Able, SimplyStu, TriDummy, and Pink Guru Gal to name a few.

rockon`

the week and IMW'ers.

So to all the IMW's out there getting ready, which most of them will not read any of this but just know that myself and a lot of others will be watching and pulling and cheering for you this weekend! Have Fun!

So on to this weeks training which has been so so. Can't seem to find my nitch but that is OK as I am still getting my runs and a couple of short but effective bike rides in. I realized that my sprint tri is in about 3 weeks so I need to focus on some swim technique as my bike/runs have been steady and consistent and way longer than need be for a sprint or even a Olympic. So tomorrow I am heading out to the lake for some technique practice, weired, in a lake huh.

Then next week I have 3 scheduled swims on the books and really going to shoot for 1 extra for endurance/long swim.

Now, it talked to the RD from the Oly race next month in Canyon Lake, the one I drove 431 miles round trip to GPS the course and it turns out that registration is just about 100 and there cap is like 600! Wow, way off the mark there but he said he going through with it and expects about 350 people to race. So even though the course is very hilly and not flat if one were to work hard you just might bring home some hardware, we shall see, can get my hopes up there. But the RD did state that this will be a wetsuit swim as the water was currently only 72*, nice!

This weekend events include an 8 mile run on Saturday, 4 before TNT group run, 4 with the group and then Sunday I am looking at heading to the hills for about a 40 mile ride.

That's the latest in short.

Oh, and I have been working with the Rice University athletics, football/soccer-girls (yea!) teams this past week and helping them get there mojo back on. It's really cool to work with a university like that!

rockon`

Monthy Training recap/new month training! and Porn

After updating last months totals, which you can see in the right column, It is clear that ALL my numbers were done in August. So how come? Heat, humidity, Lazy ASS? I'll say that last one!

My swim was 1/2 compared to July, my bike was down 60 miles compared to July and my run was down 8 miles comparatively. And one thing to note is that my Overall monthly training time was increased by about 30 minutes in August. So recap: LESS TRAINING VOLUME = MORE TRAINING TIME. WTF? not sure what to think on that one other than I just went overall slower in the month of August and it cost me just a bit more time, What can you do... right.

No worries as it's a new month and a race month that is! Cinco Sprint (400m/19mi/3mi) come the end of the month and it's all gearing towards Canyon Lake next month in mid Oct.

So with that being said, yesterday was the TNT Group run and myself and Coach Liz went out and ran the 4.4 miler course before scheduled time. Then once we started our scheduled TNT run it started raining/lightening so we changed the course to around the park loop and only got about 1/2 way around when it was too bad and we had to turn everyone around and head back. So that gave me another 2.6 miles for a total of 7 miles for Saturday, not bad.

Then this morning I was out the door with Dino and we headed for the Flat route for a little brick time. After a nice tailwind cranking my out speed up to 22 mph it was turn around time and head wind dropped it down to about 17 mph finishing the 27.16 miles in 1 hr 30 mins with avg. speed of 18 mph. Then it was run time. Made a quick T2 and I was off. Legs felt tired and I have not been practicing too many bricks and not to mention the 7 mile run the day before but the weather was cooler and my HR was staying down towards the bottom of Z2 so I kicked the pace up just a little and finished off my 3 miles in 30:23. Not bad for my brick.

So the first 2 days of the month training is moving along. Oh but wait.... I have to say on Friday I went to swim out at Twin Lakes in my new..!!! (dant da danaaa) Xterra Vengence Full wetsuit!

I ordered it last week and it came in this week so I had to try it out, even though it was Totally 88* water, I was overheated in a hurry so made it short. It was definitely a great little try out swim and I look forward to many more swims leading up to IMCdA in this baby!

Also I must mention that while out swimming I was there with the HRTC swim group, the group name is the Lake Sharks, didn't know sharks were in lakes but it's kinda funny. Anyway I noticed this gal getting ready on the dock to jump in and swim and I was like "hey are you Pink Guru Gal from the Blogs?" and she is like YEAH! who are you? I'm JohnnyTri. She goes, oh yeah, great to met you! So we chatted just a little while she finished getting ready for her taper swim as Pink Guru Gal is heading out to IM Wisconsin this week!

Tomorrow looks like a motorcycle ride up to the bike course to show Mrs. JT and just have a great Labor Day. Enjoy EVERYBODY!

rockon`