Well it was supposed to be a crash training weekend. A crash training week/weekend is where you really explore your limits in terms of volume. I was planning on a 2.4 swim Friday, 112 bike followed by an hour run Sat, and a long-ish run (2-3 hours) on Sunday. But it never happened quite like it was supposed to. The swim on Friday went great. I swam with Jeremy and we did 2 full loops, hitting the first one in 31+ and the second one in about 32+. 63 minutes was way faster than I thought I could go. But my avg HR was right where I wanted it to be. I did draft off of Jeremy for some portions of the swim, so I'm sure that helped, but I was really stoked about how well it went. The last 1/4 of the swim I pushed a little harder than I would in the race, but I never felt uncomfortable or out of breath. Overall I still think this was faster than I will likely race.
On Saturday I woke up and felt good. I had had a sore throat the later part of the week and I was worried I was going to not be 100%. The goal of the ride was actually to ride a little harder than I was planning to race at. I know what my pace/power should be for the race. So I really didn't feel the need to see that anymore. I knew I could put down almost 500 cal/hr on the bike at a HR of 150+/-. The reason for pushing maybe a little bit harder was so that I knew what I should NOT feel on race day. If ever I felt on race day that I was pushing as hard as I was in training, than I was pushing too hard. I also wanted to see if I could do the same calorie intake at a slightly harder effort. Well the first loop went well. It was faster than my goal pace by a bit (3:10 ish), but not by a lot. I came in and got re-fueled and started out on the second lap.
Then my day ended! Abruptly! I came out of the hotel and started downhill to head out of town and I remember a car passing me and then deciding that he needed to quickly turn into the gas station. Problem was that he didn't give me enough space. I hit the breaks hard and almost saved it, but over the bars I went. I don't recall actually making contact with the car, but I don't think my front wheel hit (no damage to the front tire/wheel at all). But I went flying! I hit the ground pretty hard. I remember yelling out as I was going down and I knew it was going to hurt. I jumped up pretty quick though and then realized that I should sit down as I hadn't done a "check" of my body yet. I was waiting for the shock to wear off and I would realize that a bone was sticking out. But nothing really major seemed wrong. My shoulder really hurt and I could tell I had some road rash, but other than that I was more stunned than anything. John K was right behind me and he stopped to help out. I remember he looked a little shocked. But he made sure I was okay. My bike has some bent handlebars and will need to be replaced, but no other real damage to the bike. I did drive myself over to the ER to get my shoulder x-rayed and the road rash reviewed. Everything checked out okay. Now don't get me wrong, this was still pretty serious, not so much for what happened, but what could've happened. If I had been in the aero-bars, I can assure you that I wouldn't have reached the breaks in time and things would have been much worse. If I had been going faster, things would have been worse. If...If...If. Well, when you have a young family at home, those If's become much scarier. I remember walking my bike back to the hotel (1/4 mile away) and thinking "I just got hit by a car". Let me tell you, it doesn't matter how minor the injuries/damage, that is something you don't want to say. I called the wife immediately and told her I was heading over to the ER to get checked out. The helmet was dented and is therefore being thrown away. You are only allowed one crash with a helmet.
Having laid out the scenario to several people, including those in the ER, it appears that the guy just made a turn when he shouldn't have. I personally think I was caring a little too much speed given that I was in "town" still and I know in the future I will be much more careful about it.
I'm pretty sure, that my training will take a hit. I figure I am probably not going to do too much of anything this week. I may be able to ride on a spinning bike at the gym, but I'll have to see when I am ready for that. The biggest question I have is whether I will be okay with getting back out there again on the bike on real roads. I'm pretty sure I will be, but I won't know until I clip in to those pedals. I know it gave my wife a scare and it clearly gave me a scare as well. I spent the remainder of the weekend icing and watching TV. Not the way I hoped the weekend would go. My training plans will be to get healthy and then I don't think I will really try to do any more "build" phase work (higher intensity). I think I will just stick to the volume stuff at easy pace until taper time. It is possible that my taper has already started, but I don't think so. The shoulder is feeling better already and I'm pretty much off the motrin. I will really need to focus on the diet and make sure I think about how much I eat, given that my work load is decreased. I also am pretty sure that any time goals that I may have had (although I had nothing formal...just low-mid 11 hours) are not goals anymore at all. My goals now will be to swim easy, bike even easier (i'll probably drop 10-20 watts off of my planned pace) and run with a smile. I really won't care about time. I'll just be glad that I can see my two sons at the finish line.
Dave
Monday, June 18, 2007
Friday, June 8, 2007
Race Report
Okay, I quick report as I don't have too much time. Work is pretty busy, of course.
Although the race didn't go as well as I had hoped in terms of my bike and run I was happy with the overall effort. I think a lot of the fast guys most have stayed in bed, as I did pretty well in the overall placing (13). My time was 5:15, which on this course I think was pretty good. I think on a course like Eagleman (which I did last year) this would have been a sub 5. I talked to one really fast guy (5 OA) who said he felt this course was at least 20 minutes slower than an average 1/2. This was the first year for the race and the organization was pretty good. I think there is some worry that b/c the bike course was so tough, there may not be a lot of repeaters. Lots of people walking bikes up hills.
Swim
I wanted to swim a little harder on this one and try to find some feet to follow. They ended up trimming a little off of the course at the last minute due to some buoy issues. We figure it was about 100-200 yards short. I did find some feet about 1/2 way through and was able to keep on them for the most part. I did find that I was kind of snaking back and forth a little (or maybe he was), but it definetly helped. About the last 300-500 yards I got up with a group of about 5 and this helped a little. Didn't have to sight too much. I hit the beach in 29:30 and then had about a 1/4 mile uphill run. I had decided to stop just after the beach and strip my suit there. I would make the run up the hill easier and for me the suit comes off easier just out of the water. This worked out well and really helped out my overall transition. Got going on the bike pretty well. The only down side to the good swim, was that my HR was pretty high (close to my bike LT) and it took a while on the bike to get this back down.
Bike
This didn't go as I had hoped. I had a power number in mind (210-220 W) and had done this in training on an 80 mile ride with no problems and was able to get off and run an hour after that ride. During that training ride my HR was good (about 10 below LT) and that was my goal here. But I just couldn't get those power numbers AND my HR was way higher. It was all I could do to keep my HR under my LT (~173 on the bike). But I rode the hills well. Many people would pass me on the hills during the first lap, only to coast down the other side. I would climb steady and then hit 40+ on the downhills as I was still pedaling. On the second lap, nobody was passing me, either up or down. I was pretty much even between the two laps. Hit T2 feeling pretty good.
Run
Out of T2, I was running with someone from my club who had a really good ride. He was hoping to do 7-7:10 pace, which is what I was thinking, so we ran for a little while. But on the first hill he pretty much realized that was going to be too fast for him. So I left him. I was around 7 min pace for the first 4 miles, but this course has a tough 3/4 mile climb in it and the footing was all gravel road. We did this climb 2 times and this hurt the overall pace. I was able to pick off a couple more guys and overall my run was pretty good. My stomach did start to not feel so well about mile 9 or so. At this point there was no one behind me, and the guys ahead of me had about 5 minutes on me. So I pretty much cruised on in. I wish I could have been closer to the 2 guys in front of me. They finished right near each other and I think I could have been in the mix if I would have ridden better.
I recovered pretty well, although didn't eat enough as my stomach was not feeling so good. I also had done a 100 mile ride on Tuesday that week and a hard friday ride/run. I think this probably had an affect, although I didn't feel that fatigued.
This week I have recovered pretty well, although my workouts still haven't been "on". This is a big weekend and next weekend is even bigger as we had up to LP. This weekend is a 5 hour brick on Sat (3 and 2 hour run...gotta get some longer runs going) and a 4 hour ride on Sunday.
Later,
Dave
Although the race didn't go as well as I had hoped in terms of my bike and run I was happy with the overall effort. I think a lot of the fast guys most have stayed in bed, as I did pretty well in the overall placing (13). My time was 5:15, which on this course I think was pretty good. I think on a course like Eagleman (which I did last year) this would have been a sub 5. I talked to one really fast guy (5 OA) who said he felt this course was at least 20 minutes slower than an average 1/2. This was the first year for the race and the organization was pretty good. I think there is some worry that b/c the bike course was so tough, there may not be a lot of repeaters. Lots of people walking bikes up hills.
Swim
I wanted to swim a little harder on this one and try to find some feet to follow. They ended up trimming a little off of the course at the last minute due to some buoy issues. We figure it was about 100-200 yards short. I did find some feet about 1/2 way through and was able to keep on them for the most part. I did find that I was kind of snaking back and forth a little (or maybe he was), but it definetly helped. About the last 300-500 yards I got up with a group of about 5 and this helped a little. Didn't have to sight too much. I hit the beach in 29:30 and then had about a 1/4 mile uphill run. I had decided to stop just after the beach and strip my suit there. I would make the run up the hill easier and for me the suit comes off easier just out of the water. This worked out well and really helped out my overall transition. Got going on the bike pretty well. The only down side to the good swim, was that my HR was pretty high (close to my bike LT) and it took a while on the bike to get this back down.
Bike
This didn't go as I had hoped. I had a power number in mind (210-220 W) and had done this in training on an 80 mile ride with no problems and was able to get off and run an hour after that ride. During that training ride my HR was good (about 10 below LT) and that was my goal here. But I just couldn't get those power numbers AND my HR was way higher. It was all I could do to keep my HR under my LT (~173 on the bike). But I rode the hills well. Many people would pass me on the hills during the first lap, only to coast down the other side. I would climb steady and then hit 40+ on the downhills as I was still pedaling. On the second lap, nobody was passing me, either up or down. I was pretty much even between the two laps. Hit T2 feeling pretty good.
Run
Out of T2, I was running with someone from my club who had a really good ride. He was hoping to do 7-7:10 pace, which is what I was thinking, so we ran for a little while. But on the first hill he pretty much realized that was going to be too fast for him. So I left him. I was around 7 min pace for the first 4 miles, but this course has a tough 3/4 mile climb in it and the footing was all gravel road. We did this climb 2 times and this hurt the overall pace. I was able to pick off a couple more guys and overall my run was pretty good. My stomach did start to not feel so well about mile 9 or so. At this point there was no one behind me, and the guys ahead of me had about 5 minutes on me. So I pretty much cruised on in. I wish I could have been closer to the 2 guys in front of me. They finished right near each other and I think I could have been in the mix if I would have ridden better.
I recovered pretty well, although didn't eat enough as my stomach was not feeling so good. I also had done a 100 mile ride on Tuesday that week and a hard friday ride/run. I think this probably had an affect, although I didn't feel that fatigued.
This week I have recovered pretty well, although my workouts still haven't been "on". This is a big weekend and next weekend is even bigger as we had up to LP. This weekend is a 5 hour brick on Sat (3 and 2 hour run...gotta get some longer runs going) and a 4 hour ride on Sunday.
Later,
Dave
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