Colorado Cross Classic

Boulder Peak

Last weekend was the Boulder Peak Olympic distance triathlon.
Swim: 25 minutes
Bike: 1:18:22
Run 43:17

My bike still needs lots of work and I feel like it always will. The most exciting thing was that I hit a fox going about 35 mph down the back side of Olde Stage Rd. He jumped out right in front of me and I clipped his back end. My front wheel wobbled and I screamed as I wondered which side of my body was going to get the worst road rash. Things worked out and I didn't crash. I looked back and saw the fox lope across the road. Looks like we both made it! I was probably a bit more cautious after that than I would have liked to be.
Nearly at T2 three guys were riding side by side and a car was trying to pull out perpendicular to them. I passed them as the car nearly took us all out. One of the guys crashed into my rear wheel. We both stayed upright and almost doesn't count.
So a couple of close calls and I was happy to be out on the run. I ran hard and passed more people than passed me. My run kept me just under 7 minutes per mile and I am very happy with that. Today I rode my bike and I look forward to the 70.3 next month!

Longest sprint ever.

This weekend was the first of three triathlons in the Boulder Tri Series. This was the first year that Ironman bought the races and there were quite a few complaints heard. At packet pickup, there were two lines snaking through the expo. Nobody told you which line to get into first and most people waited over an hour to pick up their race number and free goodies. The t-shirt was less than impressive so people weren't happy about the free things they received. It looks like most other race shirts, I could care less. It was pretty nice going to an expo and not working it although it made me realize how much I love the athletic industry.
Race day came around and I was excited to test myself. After my last sprint triathlon where I averaged 6:27 per mile and the Bolder boulder 10k where I ran 6:24 per mile, I was ready to see where my fitness was now.
Mark is a great coach and having him show his support at these races has been great. It must be tough not being able to race, but he is still so enthusiastic about his athletes.
My swim went well and I was top 10 out of the water for my age group. I had the 55th fastest swim time out of 1600. Out on the bike everything was going to plan for the first mile. Then my front tube exploded. Not a slow leak, but a big bang and then it was flat. I pulled over (swearing loudly) and tried to use my pit stop to plug the leak. Foam was spilling out of my tire and I knew I was screwed. I was determined not to quit. I started walking the bike course thinking of CAF athletes and Rutger Beke. About 3 miles into it an official on a motorcycle informed me that the bike course was almost 18 miles long. I turned around and walked back to transition. After 6 miles of walking barefoot on the road I was close to limping as I hit T2. I ran a 20:37 5k making my pace being 6:39.
I was disappointed with the whole day. After resting today however (and not catching any fish) I am eager to get back to training and kick butt at the Olympic distance race next month.

1st triathlon of the season.

After a week of injury and a week of illness, I am happy with my results from yesterday's Summer Open sprint triathlon.
I swam a 10:53 750 meter swim. I love wetsuits. I never got on anybody's feet. That was frustrating. I had a few strokes behind somebody, but then they would start breaststroking. Being out in no man's land feels inefficient.
After a quick (:52) T1, I was onto the bike. There were a ton of Triads and even one Triad SL. My 12.4 mile bike was completed in 32:32 for an average speed of 22.9 mph. For me that is pretty good, but compared to the rest of the field, it sucks. We are going to work on the bike for the upcoming season.
T2 (:41) went well and I took off quickly on the heels of some guy hauling ass for the first half mile. Realizing that pace was unsustainable, I settled into my own rhythm and tried to pick people off. The run felt good and I was happy with a 19:58 (6:27 pace) 5k.

I ended up 3rd in my age group out of 33 and 28th of the 353 total.
I am still not feeling 100% and it was difficult to pick up the pace at some points in the race. I had a blast none the less and got to play with the dogs in the lake after the race. Time for a busy day off now.

SOMA Half.

Swim 33:43
T1 1:06
Bike 2:38:10
T2 1:09
Run 1:47:12
Total 5:01:21

While I am happy with my overall result, I feel like I made a lot of mistakes.
The swim was the most brutal swim that I have ever been in. I was kicked, hit, punched, slapped, pushed, and everything else that could happen. That being said I think that I violated quite a few people as well. It was a swim start and all the guys under 30 were in the same wave. It was pretty aggressive. I made my way towards the front of the pack, but it did no good. I had to stop to fix my goggles a couple of time. That never happens. The women started a few minutes before us and we quickly caught them. Then I caught the group in front of them. A couple times I ran into some massive person that was sitting still treading water and trying not to panic. My wetsuit was rubbing on my neck. That also never happens, I must have put the strap in a funny position. Another rookie mistake. I am such an age grouper.
The first transition went well although I have still never tried the flying mount. Mounting my bike, I put my foot on top of my shoe and somehow pushed it off the pedal. I had to stop and put my shoe on like everyone else. Come on Rory, get it together! I took off pedaling and realized that I had no liquids. No water bottle, nothing. I knew that at mile 9 there was an aid station so I just hoped to make it there. The bike was 3 loops. I started pretty conservatively because I don't think that I have ridden 56 miles at one time this year. At the aid station, I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade. While trying to take a sip and thank the volunteers I somehow managed to squirt the Gatorade up my nose and into my eye. I guess I was squeezing the bottle really hard. I was very thirsty! The first bike loop was faster than I expected. The course was flat and we had a bit of cloud cover so the temperature was perfect. The second loop went well except for my penalty. The three lanes came together to one lane with no shoulders. A dozen people came together and as we tried to get in front of each other two guys in front started talking and going the same speed. There was no way to go forward, back, left or right. The ref pulled up and gave at least 8 of us either drafting or blocking penalties. We were all yelling at these two guys to move, but it was too late. Whatever. The bike ended well and I was excited for the run.
The run started well with the first mile a 7:04. Mile 2 was a 7:10. I was hoping to run 8 minute miles, so this was feeling good. I know that my last two half marathons that I ran were a 7:10 pace. Then it all slowly deteriorated. 8:00, 8:30, blah blah blah. The last four mile were hard. I was definitely shuffling. I think that people were cheering for me because I looked like I was hurting.
Overall, I am really stoked about the time though. 5:01 is almost 15 minutes better than my last half. Of course comparing Kona to Tempe isn't really fair. I will post pictures as I get them!

LA Triathlon.

I was able to race the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Triathlon presented by Herbalife. I should rephrase that. I participated in the race this weekend. Checking the results, I was not too disappointed. The only thing that I have to blame is my lack of fitness. My guess is that it might be a direct result of the lack of training. I did swim with Courtenay a couple of weeks ago, but apparently that didn’t carry over to this race. I felt like my arms weren’t pulling me through the water, but were just going through the motions. There was a little swell and plenty of people had some difficulty. I hate when people complain about conditions in the ocean. If you are scared, don’t enter a race in the ocean. Know what you are signing up for. There were plenty of lifeguards and I never felt like it was too dangerous. I was able to catch a couple of waves in at the end of the swim so that must have saved me about 4 seconds.
The bike wasn’t as exciting as I thought that it would be. I love racing in cities where everything is shut down. There were lots of volunteers, cops everywhere, and the plenty of people wondering what was going on when they woke up Sunday morning. We rode through Korea Town and ended near the Staples Center. My legs felt constantly tired and I am hoping that it was uphill most of the way. After all, we were heading away from the ocean. It looked pretty flat however.

The run was great. Except for one big hill. Up was bad, down was scary. I loved the run though. I never felt like I had any “pep” out there. I felt very flat the whole day. Like I was just going through the motions. I liked the run course because we got to run past a Disney building that I saw in the movie “The Soloist”. It was also fun because it was pretty close to an out and back and we did two loops. I like out and back courses. There is something that makes me happy when I know that I am on my way back. After the first half, everything seems easier, no matter what the distance is. I was glad that I got to do the race. We left LA a couple of days later and now I am sitting in the Honolulu airport. When I publish this, I plan on being on my lanai looking over the warm part of the Pacific thinking about how hectic this next week will be and how happy I am that I am not racing. I look forward to a full week with a few thousand friends.

Kirland and last WA races.

We are now in Los Angeles. The only thing nice that I have to say about it... well we are leaving in 3 days. I can't wait to a) get out of here b) go to Hawai'i. We drove for 3 days straight to get here, have been busting our butt at work and tomorrow I get to race the LA Tri.

This is from the sprint in Kirkland a couple of weeks ago. I was laughing with my new friend Cody. He used to be stationed on O'ahu so we got to talk about Hawai'i while racing. I think that it made me faster, but he still beat me. I like talking to people while racing. Sometimes they like it too.

The following week, I ran a half marathon. Here is the only (bad) picture that they took of me. I think that every race should have plenty of photographers and a coffee truck. I don't drink coffee, but they make a killing at every race where they show up.

Race excitement.

The antibiotics have begun and none to soon. I signed up for SOMA today. I can't wait. The best part is that I will have some good training in Kona while we are there in October. It will be a wonderful time to swim, bike, and run my heart out. The folks at Red Rock Company put on some really fun events. Check out their PBR Urban Dirt Tri. It looks like a lot of fun as well.
I am still waiting for my passport to arrive before taking off to Canada. I made cookies today and Moj is making some sort of banana meringue pie. That probably isn't conducive to fast race times, but I think that it is well worth it. I guess I could take up aqua jogging like Courtenay...

Going back to Cali.

I love road trips. I guess that is my life. Leaving Colorado was sad, but exciting. I can really see myself living there in the future. We drove North to Wyoming, turned left on I-80 and haven’t looked back. Wyoming was pretty and boring. Utah was the same. The mountains were very nice before we arrived in Salt Lake City. I would like to visit there in the winter. It has been pretty uneventful since then. We arrived in Reno and checked in to the Atlantis Casino. I am not a fan of casinos, but Reno sucks and we didn’t want to walk around the town. This place was within our budget and added some excitement to our road trip. Lots of people smoking cigarettes, drinking, and the constant clang clang clang of slot machines. It’s like I can see the life draining out of these people. Suck in the nicotine, wash it down with a beer, and throw more money away. Time to move one. I will admit, we put $20 on black at the Roulette table. We lost. Now we drive to California.
[update] After 3 days of driving, we made it to California. Vineman was hot. Looked like a fun race. A tree fell on a couple of triathletes while they were on the bike. Bad luck. Joe Gambles broke the course record which was exciting. The guys running Vineman are cool people. I got to hang out with Conrad Stotlz for a bit at the Avia booth. Turns out Avia doesn't hate us. After the race, we drove towards the coast. We had dinner in Guerneville. We were a couple of the few straight people there. Looking for a place to stay, a lot fo the places were "gay friendly, nudity allowed". Not that I am opposed to either one, but after a long day of work all I want to do is relax. We drove to the coast and we are loving it!

Last weekend in Boulder.

It has been a couple of weeks in one place. I am not sure if I am ready for the "normal" life. Sometimes the idea of having a place to live seems really nice. But the idea a car payment, rent/mortgage, insurance, and repetition are still further away in the future. I think it is the repetition that scares me the most. Although I think that my training would be much better if I had a "normal" job.
We are heading out West in a couple of days. We won't be back in CO until November. So it was time to get some deeply discounted gear for the winter.

I am ready.

The transition area at the race.

This weekend's race was the Boulder Peak olympic distance triathlon. It is a popular race in the U.S. It was cool to see Craig Alexander wandering around enthusiastically cheering on the people racing.

 

My banana bread.

I was also able to use the bread maker at the house where we are staying. It has been fun. Theresa is awesome. Craig shops at the bread discount store. I didn't know that it existed either until we went today.
One last thing. If you like fishing, check out the monster Brown Trout picture that I just put on Fishy Steve's website! Insane. www.FishySteve.com

Wildflower

Rudy Garcia-Tolson.

Wow. Leaving Yosemite, our next event was Wildflower. What a great, crazy, busy, fun few days. I got to see Terenzo Bozzone, Chris Lieto, "One Arm" Willie Stewart, Andy Potts, Luke Bell, Rudy Garcia-Tolson, Sarah Reinertsen, and many more heroes race.

Me and Luke Bell.

Mojdeh cheering on Terenzo Bozzone.

We are back in Buellton where we are having transmission trouble again. Tomorrow, they might tell us what is wrong. Then we are going to Tempe, Arizona for a week.

Going to the beach.

Tricia finished the Boston Marathon in 3:32! Awesome. I am trying to get serious about my half IM training. We bought new running shoes today. I got the Saucony Progrid Ride.  

I have worn the Mizuno Wave Riders forever, so this will be new. The bikes we have don't quite fit us. I am riding a medium triathlon bike which is a little too small for me or a large road bike which is a bit too big. 

I am hoping to receive a bike that is in between, but if not, I will have to get on my old bike for training and racing.

Hodges

A few years ago, my friend Ryan was the youngest competitor at the Ironman World Championships in Kona. The following year a few of us went over to cheer everyone on. These are pictures from that year. Ryan is a student-athlete and all around good guy. He recently completed Ironman Lanzarote, here is his race report:

Lets start with the swim...It was badass. I swam smart; slow at the start, maneuvered around packs of people and then hauled ass for the last 3/4 of the swim and ended the swim with a quick time. The bike course lived up to its name as being the hardest in the world. It was extremely gusty, very cold in the mountains, then very hot at sea level, with hills adding up to about 9000 ft in elevation.
The highlight of the race began when I had 8 miles left to go on the 112 mile bike ride...I got a flat tire. What did I do? I did everything I could to fix it. Nothing I had with me on the ride did what it was suppose to do. So, I was given the choice to quit the race, or run the last 8 miles of the bike course with my bike, barefoot, on the asphalt. So, I thought what the hell, I´ll run it. I sacrificed way too much to come here. I was first in my age group when I had the flat, but my goal from that point on was to just finish the race, doing well never mattered any more from that point on.
So, the day ended well. I finished. I had a great swim, and an unforgettable bike ride. Unfortunately, I ran a total of 34 miles- 8 more than I should have. I´m just glad to call myself an Ironman once again...Praise the LORD!
Thank you everyone for the prayers and for supporting me along the way. Thinking about all of you really helped me through the run.

Great job Ryan!

Bolder Boulder race report

I just read this article claiming that political apathy is so high in Hawai'i, that city council members, the city prosecutor, and even the mayor have little or no opposition in the upcoming election. There are still eight weeks left to register for any of these positions, so if you are unhappy with the way things are going in Hawai'i, don't just complain, run for a position.

This morning was the Bolder Boulder. I have been hoping to run a 42 minute 10k. All the excuses started of why I couldn't hit that mark as soon as I opened my eyes. I woke up to light rain. I rode to the race start wearing sweatpants and a long sleeve tshirt. I locked my bike, stripped to my cool running outfit, and waited in line for the bathroom. 45 minutes later, my wave was getting ready to rock. I overheard a few different kinds of conversations including,

"Don't run on your toes, it isn't good for you"
"Oh my god, look how badly I need to wax my eyebrows"
"Yeah I noticed your eyebrows a few days ago"

I maneuvered my way to the front of my wave and when the gun went off, I took off sprinting, exactly what I shouldn't do. Most people in my wave were walking or running the first mile before walking the next five. I signed up late so I was put in the back half of the 52,000+ entrants. The first mile was fine, I hugged the side and there weren't too many people in my way.
We passed the middle aged belly dancers that had no business showing their stomachs during mile two. The roads started getting thinner and the crowds began squishing together. It was nearly impossible for me to put my head down and find a rhythm. I slacked off a couple of times making the excuse that I should slow down and just enjoy the run. That seemed like a waste of time though. There was a pretty good Elvis around mile 3.
The weather was good for running. It was overcast and about 15C (60F). Some people had a slip and slide set up and a few brave souls dared to take the challenge. One guy that I was catching up to, veered off the course, slid down the slip and slide into the mud puddle, got up and continued running. I gave him a high five and was glad not to be him for the next few wet cold miles as I kept going.
What I noticed throughout the run was the lack of enthusiasm by the spectators. Everyone stood on the side of the road, silent until they saw the person that they were waiting for. They would give a little cheer and then leave the race to go home. In Hawai'i people are cheering for everyone.
Mile four was spent zig-zagging in and out of thousands of runners and walkers. Some people like to wear costumes which is always fun. There are a few bands on the course and some of them are decent. The fun ones are the people that probably only sing in the shower, yet on Memorial Day in Boulder, they decide set up a microphone and belt out their favorite tunes in front of all of us. It is hard to laugh and run, but I always clap for them. I wouldn't do it.
I saw my Mom at about mile 5. She was the obnoxious lady screaming at everyone. Telling everyone that they are doing a great job (even if they weren't racing).
When I hit mile 6 I thought that I spent too much time avoiding people to do as well as I wanted. There was a short uphill that made most people slow down (myself included) and almost throw up. We ran into Folsom Field, University of Colorado's football field that holds over 50,000 people. As we were sprinting to the finish, there were a boy and girl about 15 years old dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They were pretty quick so I tried to catch them. As I came up behind them, I was shouting encouragement, "Let's go Turtles!" Unfortunately, the boy slipped going around a corner and the girl didn't look back, she picked up speed and made sure to beat him as he slid on his shell.
I finished the race, not knowing my time and went home to eat a big breakfast before work. After work, I came home and saw my time, 41:43.33! Woo hoo. A 6:44 pace makes me happy. I placed 893 out of the 52,000 entrants. Looks like I will need to break 40 minutes at my next 10K.
Pics will be posted when they are released.
Pau.