Team Golden Ring Finishes for 2008

First of all....congratulations to everyone who raced this year. If you hit your personal goals, "high five." If not, keep coming back! The beauty of this sport is that there is always opportunity for improvement and most times a chance to participate in the same event the following year. This sport is continuing to grow and even if you are a middle of the packer, you can embrace the lifestyle and making it part of who you are, regardless of what you ride or wear. This is truly a great way to live and the people are awesome.



I've attached my year end recap (on my website) for those who want to do some introspection on their past year and the future. I use this with all my athletes to help them review the +/-'s of their season and actually quantify their goals. You can use this for work, family or whatever else you are involved with to make life a continuous improvement. (This is all my business training coming out....)



A few shout out's to some folks I worked with this season for their AWESOME accomplishments.



The Running Fit Tri Group....We had at some points, up to 50 people participating in our clinics at Island Lake. Many of these athletes completed their first event at the same venue. This was an awesome group to work with this summer.



The Milford Y Tri Group- We had some first time participants at our local Kensington race that sold out again this year. Our committee is awesome and was a great help. Congratulations to our first timers. I know that we will have another finisher from this group next year in that Steve Hartwig is working with "The Coach" to get prepped. I am convinced he is going to fly as a first timer.



Jane Sanders (Running Fit) Jane and I started working together this summer and she had some phenomenal results. Her most recent was a 3:50 marathon in Columbus, which now qualifies her for the next 2 years at Boston. Jane also won her AG at several local tri's and road runs as well as placed 6th at Steelhead Half Iron. (Jane is in her 50's and getting faster!!!)



Kathryn Jones: Won overall woman at the Grosse Isle Du this fall. This just after having a baby within the past year.



Stephanie Egan: First year triathlete; won her AG at Lansing(along with other AG's) and finished 2nd at . She also completed her first full Marathon at Bayshore this spring. FYI: She's a former smoker.



Lori Egan: (My dear wife): Completed her first half marathon in Detroit this fall. This was quite an achievement, being married to her coach and just having had our baby a year ago. Way to go honey! And yes....she did follow the plans. Lori also has Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis.



What's the takeaway: 1. Anyone can compete in this sport. The sport doesn't care about your past or things that may hold you back. 2. You have to make a decision to move. 3. There is help available, but only if you want it. 4. Self education will get only get you so far. If you want to get better, a coach is your best bet. Even the coaches get coached.



Adios...Happy Planning for 2009. Set some tough, yet achievable goals. This is the only way to improve, in racing and in life! Next month....next year planning

What a difference a course and weather make....

Redemption!

This past weekend was a great way to end the season. The family and I traveled to Wilmington, NC for me to participate in the first annual Beach2Battleship triathlon. They had 500 athletes participating in each of the Full and Half Iron distance events. We arrived a day and half early to unwind with Lori's long time friend and they were awesome and gracious hosts for us for the weekend.

When we arrived, both Lori and I were battling some sinus issues and I was thinking this is just a wonderful way to end the year. Fortunately a little Claritin D cleared it up prior to Saturday morning. It's hard to race an endurance event when you can't breathe!

My race morning started with me waking every hour from about midnight until 4 am, when I finally said to heck with it and got up. Took care of a few items and drove to the race site at 4:45 am. I was the first one on site. This is a first!






Keep in mind that this is a point to point event, meaning it started 10 miles north of Wilmington and had 2 separate transition areas. A rather unique and confusing approach. The promoters did a nice job with laying it all out and it was a good event for the money. $150 entry. It also had the same environment as a 70.3 sanctioned event.




They started the full distance athletes an hour and a half before us and we got to see them swim by us while we waited on the pier. The swim was done in the Atlantic Intracoastal waterway, so we had the current with us the entire way in the channel. Needless to say, even though it was cold (65F), I can't imagine everyone didn't PR. I know I did. (29 minutes out of the water). However, the 300 yard run to the transition area, left a little to be desired with no carpet and all blacktop and cramping legs. They also brought out the strippers! (Wetsuit)




Bike was a bit cool, but easy to handle with a lightweight vest and arm warmers the entire ride. The coach stuck to holding my wattage at 200 in spite of lots of guys wanting to sprint by me. Needless to say, I caught a few at the halfway mark. The beauty of half iron racing is it requires speed, smarts and patience. The course was almost dead flat, except for 2 bridges which the last one came at the end of the ride. I did have one bonehead woman pass me in the final dismount chute, thinking she was saving a ton of time, while nearly costing both of us a great deal more. Note to beginners: Take it easy at turns and final chutes. We were the first wave to start the day, so you have a pretty good gauge of where you are in the overall race. My bike was you gain some, you give some spots. Overall, pretty neutral, which was good. Nutrition consisted of one "thick" bottle of Perpetuem, approx. 1000 calories and one bottle of Heed and bottle of water, 3 endurolytes.




The run....Here the mantra of never quit really hits home. I had a little gas issue at the start, so I had to walk up the first drawbridge incline at the 1 mile mark. The funny thing is that I was going back and forth with one guy who ran the entire hill and my run/walk caught him just at the crest. I knew we had a ways to go, so it was just getting settled in to go the long haul. My stomach didn't clear up until about 4-5 miles, then I was able to get into a groove of running between rest stops every mile. A few gels along the way, and the nutrition and former Muskoka bonk were held off with no problems. My nutrition was spot on, except for the little distress. With about 4 miles to go on the run, I was feeling great. The 5 guys that I had given up spots in my AG earlier, I was easily able to catch and put a nice gap. I caught 3 AG'ers on the final 2 mile incline up and over the final drawbridge. This is an awesome feeling. Cruised it on home for a 2:02 half marathon. Not great, but acceptable. (Picture above is of final 2 mile stretch, comparable to the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit's Marathon)










My race goal after the lousy performance at Muskoka was to go anything under 5:30. I came in at 5:29 and change. My bike average (2:48) was a few tenths under 20 mph overall for 56. I've still got some work to do on long distance functional power, but that will be the off season plans. My finish was 9th in the 40-44 age group out of 47. Overall the finish was 62th out of 255 men. So top 20% and 25% respectively.




Some notes about placings. When I looked specifically at my age group, the winner was in 5:05. For a half this is pretty good, but most events it is under 5 hours. The difference between my 9th place and 3rd place(podium) was under 12 minutes. When looking at my split rankings in comparison my swim/bike/run ranks were 13th/17th/20th and I finished 9th. SO.....what does all this mean (I'm not bragging).....NEVER QUIT! The key is being consistant throughout, especially at the half and longer distances. (This even applies to short course. ) You need to be competitive in all 3 events to place for awards. FYI: I was :06 seconds out of 8th place. Those few moments of walking cost that time. Lastly, even in Half races, transitions are critical. I had the fastest T1 in the top 10, but 5th in T2. There was the guy who finished 3rd, that took 6.5 minutes! to T2. That cost him 2nd place. But, I digress.........




Considering the crazy year we've had with new baby, job and other commitments, "The Coach" is happy(plus I met my time goal, which helps!). When balanced with other life obligations, you do the best you can with the resources (time) available. This is all we can do, since we aren't pros. Even then, I'm glad I don't have to do this for a paycheck, then it would become work. I was telling our host that we have to remember that most people can't comprehend doing this type of sport, but when you hang around a bunch of others that do, you can sometimes forget that competing in any endurance event is quite an achievement. We should be thankful, no matter what the results or our watch tell us. Be happy with our performance and always work to get better in the future.













Overall, I'd give Set Up Events an "A" for a first time event of this size and distance. Good volunteer support and a well layed out race. Cool medal, it's nice and heavy! Plus, cool finishing venue, right in front of an old Navy Destroyer. They get a "A+" for the weather. I'd consider going back in a few years to do it again. They announced that 2/3 of the athletes were men, 1/3 were women. They also had athletes from over 34 states and a dozen countries. If you are looking for a late season destination race, put this one on your calendar. Next years event is November 7th. One week later. Take your full length wetsuit. (FYI: It's about 850 miles there via car)


Cheers!

Aero/Power and Flat Course Redemption

So, we had beautiful weather on Saturday on Belle Isle for the 3 Disciplines Great Pumpkin Duathlon. For those who have never done an event on the river, you will always have a headwind and always have a tailwind at some point. I was looking for a test to see how I will do in the upcoming final season event in Wilmington. That is a flat course half Ironman. Saturday's event was an Olympic distance duathon with 5k run/40k bike/10k run. My last bike on the island was at the Motor City Tri relay where I completed the bike portion and averaged about 20+ mph. I was hoping my training would show some progress on that result. I'm happy to report it did!

Cadence is green, power is yellow, speed is blue.....

I'd attribute it to a couple of items. I've been working on my power based training and following the protocol layed out by the experts. My functional threshold power at the last test was 245. So, for Saturday, I aimed to hold 220 watts for the bike leg. It was 4 loops of the island, each about 5+ miles. You'll notice on the power chart here were we had the head wind and tail winds by the increase in speed(tailwind) and decrease in power. Then when we made the turn, the power went up and speed went down (headwind). The Powertap (and disc cover) forces you to not go too hard or too easy depending on the weather conditions. It's a great tool for pacing, especially on the first lap. If I were to have raced by Perceived effort, I'd have blown up at the end, similar to what I did at Motor City. Here I was fresh enough to get off and run a 10k with an average of under 8 minute miles(7:50's). The bike leg time was 1:01 which equates to 22.9 mph average. I was very happy with this improvement over the July event. Which means this should translate well to the half in 3 weeks. The more I work with and study Power training on the bike, the more clear it is that it is a necessity on anything over a sprint distance triathlon. (I only had 1 guy pass me on the bike.) I won't race without it now and I'm recommending it for all of my athletes I'm coaching.

Here is the ideal bike set up for a flat course. I finally broke down and bought the aero helmet. Not sure how much it helped, but I gained 2 mph somewhere. I'm sure it's part of the equation. It was actually pretty comfortable. Note the disc cover over my Powertap hub. This is the cat's meow! You can race with a training rim and put a $80 cover for races. Best bang for the buck. (This was compliments of my swim/bike buddy Jeff Howard. Thanks man!)

End of the day...3rd in age group, 12th overall. Good day for racing. Fall Duathlons are always very competitive and make you feel good with the small, but competitive fields.

PJ demonstrating proper aero technique.....

IM Muskoka 70.3- Bringing a Knife to a Gun Fight

We can thank Hurricane Ike for the lousy weather for the weekend in Muskoka. (Muskoka is about 2 hours north of Toronto). Saturday was overcast, but dry. As part of the local festivities, Lori ran in the Terry Fox 5K charity run. Her highlight was when Craig Alexander, IM Champion pulled off the course, (due to his 3 year old daughter) and she was able to pass him. So, now she can say she beat him, due to his DNF.

This was a first year event as an IM 70.3 event. They had over 1600 entries, but it really didn't feel like the normal insanity of an IM event. It was very well organized and the registration was pretty quick. They had a welcome dinner and they asked if this was anyones first ever triathlon. One guy stood up and the group let out a collective giggle.... I can only wonder what this guy thought. The logistics were a bit tough for anyone not staying at the resort. You had to park offsight for everything and take a shuttle to the complex. Kind of a pain, considering it is almost a one lane road into the area. The area is a lot like Lake Placid.

The funny thing was I had no anxiety due to no expectations for the event, my time or place. It's amazing the different feeling of a HIM vs. IM. As I've been saying recently, you can recover from a HIM and not worry, because if you do poorly, you can come back and race one within a couple of weeks. That was my approach on race day, when I realized I brought the wrong bike/wheels for the conditions (AKA, knife to a gun fight). The rain was coming down at 5:30 in the am and this is where you think, I've been here before, it will pass....(WRONG!)

My bike tech at work.







Swim/Race Start: The water was 68F. Felt more like 62. It was chilly. Not cold enough to suck away your breath, but your digits felt it. I wore a long sleeve wetsuit and that was the right call. They had wave starts and we were the 4th to go off. We were the 2nd largest wave(40-44). The course was a down, back and right turn. Kind of a backwards "P." It was pretty smooth sailing. I was out around 38 minutes (2:00/100' avg.) Not bad for a 300 person wave and the fact I was catching guys in the wave in front of us. No-not the pros.







The worst part was the almost km run to the tranisition, that was straight up hill. Kind of like the helix at IMWI. Does wonders for your T1 time. I saw Lori and PJ on the hill and it is always great to see loved ones to remind me of why I do it. Considering the conditions, I'm lucky they showed up. But, PJ didn't look any worse for the wear. He s eems to love all the commotion and excitement. Not sure he liked his body mark though.










Bike: Due to roads, the course was actually 58 miles, not the normal 56 for a HIM. (Not that it mattered). About 5 miles into it, my brain switched to long training day. I was scared to death on the bike. I don't normally like riding in the rain. But to do it in a Tri bike, which is inheritantly front heavy and twitchy and a deep dish rim on the front (with strong cross winds in the valleys) all I wanted to do was get home safely. There were some downhills where I was riding the brakes doing 35 mph and the bike started to get squirrelly, it is hard to get comfortable. So, I stuck to my power/pacing goal and just free spun up the hills while others ground it out. This paid off some, but I was getting quickly surpassed on the downhills. This is clearly a course where a road bike geometry would be better suited with strap on airbars and a shallow rim. Live and learn. But, this is why my time approached 3:15 on a course that normally I should ride around 3 hours. Part of the ride was horrible for about 5 miles where they just threw down gravel on top of ashpalt. It would have been better for a cyclocross bike. I'm surprised there were no flats during this portion. However, I did hear one guy blow out behind me at one spot. It never ceases to amaze me the number of flats in a major race. Why don't these people put new rubber on their wheels? My nutrition: One bottle of Perpetuem and 3/4 of a Powerbar. (In hindsight, not enough)








T2: Nothing eventful. Quick in, but had to change socks. The others were soaking wet. Along with all else I owned. One interesting note was the RD had us set up like a normal tri, not your normal IM bagged transition. So, we got to put our stuff in plastic trash bags in our tranisition, so my run stuff was "partially" dry to start.




Run: OMG...where did these hills come from? It wasn't the uphills, but the downs that made me hurt on Monday. By sticking with my power/pace, I was able to gain a handful of AG spots back on the run. I wanted to run 8's for the run, but in hindsight, I was still alittle undernourished, in spite of all my planning. In the final 5k, I think some of the lake water I had taken in was starting to affect me and I was pushed to a brisk walk up the hills and jog on the flats and downs. Run time was just over 2 hours. I saw my fan club near the end of the run and was very happily surprised. PJ was again soaking it all in. Lori is pretty good about picking me out of a crowd. Even though she says I need to wear something more brighter colored. She saw me on the drive to the shuttle bus and thankfully I was running at that point!




It rained non stop for the entire run. I had thoughts of Jeff E at IMLP this year and the exact thought I had was I'm glad this wasn't a full distance and that I've decided to focus on HIM's for the next few years. For having my maximum training week of approximately 8 hours during my summer a finish of 6 hours total is just fine with me!





Overall finish was 558, AG was 88th out of 166. (There must have been a bunch of DNS/DNF's- because 240 were registered in the AG) A top third or half finish is always respectable considering other "life" issues. If I was a pro, this would be work, not FUN! (And I'd be broke!)





The main takeaways from this event:


1. Thank your crew and loved ones and volunteers. They put up with this grumpy guy before, during and after. There was good crowd support for a small town event. This was a big deal for Muskoka.

Coach and his "Fan Club"

2. Don't underestimate the nutrition, even for a HIM. I was getting light headed with about 1/3 of the run left. Clearly nearing a "bonk."




3. You can be somewhat competitive on a reasonable training schedule of less than 10 hours per week. This was my goal, considering we have a young one in the family and I still have to work every day.




4. On hilly courses, I'm now going with a road bike modified for tri. Every hilly course has had rain and I couldn't get comfortable. This event had probably half the bikes set up in this configuration. Very few discs and deep dish rims.