Shaun's Race Reports

2011 Ironman Lake Placid

2011-07-29T10:48:00.001-04:00

This story takes place in a pretty unique place. In this place, it is normal to walk down the street in the middle of the day wearing spandex shorts, compressions socks pulled up to your knees, and a visor. It’s the type of place that is bustling at 5 AM and a ghost town at 8:30 PM. A place where the tattoo location of choice is the calf instead of the bicep and the 135 pound dude rules the roost. That’s right, a little place call Lake Placid during ironman week.

My Sunday July 24^th, 2011 started with a 4 AM alarm clock. Breakfast was a bagel with peanut butter, 3 bananas, some salt pills, and a little H20. At 5 AM we headed down to the transition area for body marking, special needs bag drop off, and last minute bike and gear checks. I had been surprisingly calm, cool and collected in the days leading up to the race, but nerves were really starting to set in. Go time was fast approaching. I was really doing this.

With 77 degree water temperatures, the swim was wetsuit optional - meaning anyone that was going for an age group podium or a Kona world championship slot could not wear a wetsuit, but everyone else had the option. I wore my wetsuit along with about 2K of the 2500+ starters knowing that I had no shot at Kona or an AG podium. I lined up about 30 meters in from the buoys and about 6 spots from the front of the pack. As we got closer to the start, a little claustrophobia started to set in. We were treading water, but there were so many people in a close proximity that you would kick each other. This was going to be fun.

The cannon shot off and we were off. Within seconds the water went from peaceful to utter chaos. The initial few minutes were extremely crowded and there was a lot of unavoidable contact. After a few minutes things settled down and I got a decent rhythm. I was trying to swim straight, but it seemed like people were constantly forcing me to veer to the left or right. I’m sure my inability to swim in a straight line was most of the problem. About halfway through the first out section, I made my way over to the buoys which have a visible line under the water. This would ensure that I stayed perfectly on course, but it also meant I would have to deal with more traffic and contact. It turned out to be a good move although there was a good bit of contact throughout much of the swim. One guy kicked me in the head and I’m pretty sure it was intentional. Another guy kicked me right in the goggle jamming it into my eye, but I’m pretty sure that one was an accident. I got a little frustrated with one guy that kept swimming into me and whacking me in the head and side with his left hand. Whack… whack… whack…. Whack…. OKAY BUDDY, ADJUST YOUR STROKE, I’M OBVIOUSLY HERE… whack, whack, whack… WHAT THE…. Whack… after way too many whack’s I shoved him over. He got the drift for a couple minutes then we started the whole process again. Oh well. That’s what you get with a mass swim of 2500+ in a small lake. At 1:05:24 (279^th overall), I emerged from the water with 2.4 miles of swimming under my belt. Warm up completed, time to do some work…

T1 was pretty uneventful. Visited the wetsuit strippers that peeled me like a banana and ran the quarter mile or so to the transition area. Grabbed my bag and headed over to the changing tent. A volunteer helped me grab all of my equipment, and I was off. As I was running out of the transition area with my bike, I kept hearing people yell “hey your chain is off”. I remember feeling bad for the athlete who’s chain was off. Then I realized they were yelling at me. What? A few seconds later I got the chain back on and we were in business. T1 was 6:34 (454^th overall).

I knew it was really important to not go out too fast on the bike, but I did anyway. I was out towards the front of the race, so I didn’t have to deal with much traffic or passing. I took it easy on the big decent – only hitting 44 MPH, which by the way was more than fast enough for me, but hammered a bit on the initial climbs and flats. At one point I was swallowed up by a draft pack, which was a little annoying in a non-draft race. I did the right thing and dropped back from the peloton and rode out of the draft zone. After a couple miles, the group slowed down. I made my way through the pack, probably took 2 miles to get through the 3-4 wide pack, but I got through and pushed it a bit to get out front of the group. Huge crowds were lining both sides of the street as I climbed the last hill – papa bear. It felt like I was cresting a climb in the tour. I finished the first loop in 2:45 – way too fast and I knew it. On the 2^nd loop I slowed down quite a bit – a bit intentionally, but mostly due to fatigue. Around 85 miles into the bike I was passed by Sean Snow, and that confirmed that I was really in trouble. I had no business being in front of him. I still had 27 miles of climbing and a marathon to run. I really slowed it down on the rest of the bike, but it was too late. Around mile 105, my legs started to cramp up. I used up the rest of my salt hoping to combat the cramps. Finished the bike in 5:54:11 (485^th overall) – so my 2^nd loop was about 24 minutes slower than the 1^st.

I was a bit of a mess in Transition two. My legs were cramping. As I would reach to put my shoes on, I would cramp up and needed to hop around until it went away. The volunteer that helped me was amazing. It takes a special person to volunteer for that job. I was a sweaty mess and he helped me to put my shoes on, get my gear, and he even put sunscreen on my shoulders. Thanks bud. I emerged from T2 in 4:56 (856^th overall).

The crowds were great as I made my way out to the run course. I was cramping like crazy, but kept running due to the crowds. Before I hit the first mile mark the crowds faded a bit and I started to walk. That was pretty much it. I knew that once I started walking, my day was done. I walked a lot over the course of the 26.2 miles and for a few different reasons. For the most part, I think it was mental more than physical. From a physical standpoint I went through periods of cramping that would go away a few minutes after taking more salt pills, I was over heating – my run watch didn’t record the temperature but my bike computer had it at 89 degrees towards the end of the bike leg, my stomach was hurting from 9 hours of only consuming liquid calories and gels. The funny thing about all the walking I did during the marathon was that I was fine with it. I was going to be an ironman and I was soaking up the experience. I had no problem with all of the people that passed me. There were periods where I would get into a pretty good groove of running to each aid station, and I was running at a pretty decent clip. I would walk about 2 minutes at each aid station before going again. I saw Sara and Finn along with a bunch of other friends during a few sections of the run and it was awesome to hear their cheers. The crowds were amazing especially as I made my way towards the finish line. As I made my way down Mirror Lake Drive I started to high 5 all of the fans along the barriers. I continued the high 5’s all the way around the Olympic skating ring. Did I mention that the crowds were amazing. I’m not sure why, but I went into the “airplane” as I made my way to the finish line. Final run time was 4:38:21 (1021^st overall ;().

Finished the race in 11:49:25. 623^rd overall place, 553^rd male, and 90^th in in the M30-34 age group.

The whole experience was amazing from start to finish. It wouldn’t have happened without amazing support from Sara and Finn along with the support of friends and family that cheered me on both onsite and from afar.

I can’t wait to do it again!

It was a long drive to Lake Placid, but at least Finn got to sit up front on the Ferry ride.

Jason and Derek before the race. Jason had an amazing race and Derek got back on his bike and finished after a crash!

Finn cheering on the athletes!

Finn rocking the visor!

Bike all set to go thanks to Derek's wrenching skills and Paul for loaning the wheels.

My buddy doing what he does

Following the strict LP dress code prior to the race and hanging with Esme - "what doing?"

Here I am heading to T1 after the swim

Heading out on the 2nd loop of the bike

A shot of the bikers leaving town

Having a tough marathon, but still smiling

High 5's as I'm heading around the Olympic oval on my way to the finish line

After the race with my bud

Cool shirt Finn!

Thanks for cheering me on all day and staying up late!

Sara had an awesome shirt made too! The back said "My husband goes the distance - 140.6"

Champagne toast on Monday with Sara, Jason, and Halen

Finn and I sporting our cool new shirts.

future ironman?

Here's a video that Sara took at the finish

Here's a link to my bike data:

Here's a link to my run data:

2010 BayState Marathon Race Report

2010-10-18T12:15:00.000-04:00

To be honest, I didn’t think it was in the cards this year. The marathon training plan I used last year was 16 weeks and totaled 562 miles over that period. It included an 18, 2 20’s, and a 22 mile run. With the BayState marathon being only 5 weeks after the Pumkinman half-ironman race, I just couldn’t get near that volume. I logged 1 18 and 1 20 mile run, with only a total of 350 miles in the 16 weeks prior to the race. A crazy work travel schedule and busy times at home with Finn meant that the weeks leading up to the race didn’t include the sleep and healthy eating habits that everyone should shoot for – never mind someone getting ready to try to qualify for the Boston marathon with a sub 3:10:59 effort.

That being said, I knew I was physically capable of qualifying, I would just need to endure more pain that I was used to. I did my best to beat it into my head - if I could suffer it would happen.

Race morning was pretty stress free. The 8:00 start meant a 5 AM wakeup (sleeping in compared to most of the tri’s I do and most flights I wake up to catch) for some coffee and carbs. Finn was rooting for me, so he was nice enough to go right back to sleep after his 1 AM midnight snack and diaper change. At 6, I was picked up by Tim and Paul. One more quick stop to pickup Will and we made our way to beautiful Lowell, MA. There wasn’t a lot of time to think about this race. We battled traffic to get a parking spot and the next thing we knew it was 10 minutes from the start.

Paul and I lined up towards the front, maybe 5 or 6 rows back. One of the cooler things I’ve experienced in a race happened about 30 seconds from the start. They tried to play the National Anthem, but announced that due to technical difficulties they couldn’t play it. All of a sudden the entire group of runners and spectators starting singing it. Made me proud to be an American and to be surrounded by such great people.

Below are my splits from the race. We started out a bit fast but settled in after a few miles, ticking off 7’s fairly comfortably. Paul and I basically pulled a pack of 15 or so runners for the first 13 miles. At first I didn’t realize we had a pack with us, but it was funny to hear spectators cheering for the pack. The half marathon mark was about 5 or 6 minutes faster than I’ve ever run a standalone half marathon. After 13, we made a conscience effort to slow down a bit and try to run 7:15’s. Fatigue set in around 17-18, but I kept telling myself that this was nothing but a mental game at that point.

At mile 23, I really started to hurt badly. I knew I had time in the bank so I decided to try to run a couple 7:30’s and pick it back up for the last mile. I’ve run enough races to know that when you slow down that late in the race, there is no picking it back up. My last mile was a 7:52 but I knew all I had to do was cross the finish line and I was there. The funny thing about that “slow” 7:52 is that it was fast than my average pace last year…

I came across the line in 3:08:56 – 2 minutes under the qualifying time. Average pace was 7:13 per mile and I finished in 160^th place out of 1564 finishers. My time was over a 20 minute PR from a year ago.

I’ve already signed up for the Boston Marathon – April 18^th, 2011. I’m psyched for my first (better not be my last) Boston. With Ironman Lake Placid being the focus for next year, I won’t “race” Boston. I’m going to view it as a long training day. I’ll run with a camera, enjoy the experience, take in the crowds.

Split	Time
1	0:06:57
2	0:06:53
3	0:07:04
4	0:07:06
5	0:06:58
6	0:07:06
7	0:07:01
8	0:06:59
9	0:07:01
10	0:06:59
11	0:06:58
12	0:06:58
13	0:07:02
14	0:07:11
15	0:07:12
16	0:07:14
17	0:07:11
18	0:07:12
19	0:07:19
20	0:07:10
21	0:07:13
22	0:07:11
23	0:07:17
24	0:07:32
25	0:07:36
26	0:07:52
27	0:02:32
Total:	3:08:58

Here's a link to my Garmin file on the race: 2010 BayState Marathon

2010 Pumpkinman Half Ironman

2010-09-13T18:02:00.000-04:00

Some of the major races that I've done require spending a bunch of time hanging around the venue the day before - because of time consuming packet pick-up, mandatory bike drop off, or because it is a destination race (race-cation as I like to describe them to Sara). Typically the day before is pretty wild because of the energy of being surrounded by more healthy / fit people than you can imagine - the type of people who's veins in their calves have their own veins.... Pumpkinman was a major race for me (and 500 of my closest friends on that day) because it has all of the energy and excitement of the big race without the time consuming hassle on the day prior.

On Saturday the day before the race, seeing that I didn't have to commit a whole day to packet pickup and bike drop off, I was able to spend the day with Sara and Finn. I started out the morning with a 45 minute ride and 15 minute run. I felt a bit frisky out there - went hard for the first 5 miles of the ride and had to make myself chill out on the last 10. My run ended up being a 2 miler at 7:30 pace - a little faster than I intended, but it just felt right. After my tune-up workout, we decided to spend our Saturday apple picking. It turns out that Apple Crest Farms in Hampton Falls, NH had a festival going on. Seeing that we were at a farm, you would think I would still be surrounded by healthy people and getting that pre-race energy - you know being around a bunch of people that eat fruit and vegetables.... Completely the opposite. There were so many unhealthy people there it was amazing. Everyone was walking around eating ice-cream and donuts and almost no one chomping on an apple. Wake up America..... In full disclosure the apple pie and ice-cream was awesome, but I was racing 70.3 miles the next day and we did bring home a boat load of apples….

I always say that the night’s sleep before the race doesn't mean a thing. It is the night before that matters. I think Finn may have heard me say this out loud. He actually passed out around 8 PM, but Sara and I decided to watch a movie instead of hitting the hay early. Well, we checked him at 10:15 right before were going to go to sleep and he was in serious need of a changing. I'm talking a two person tag team wipes up the back type of changing. Just when we get him all cleaned up, he is laying there naked and his fire hose goes off. He got me, Sara, and his own hair. There was no more debating, he needed a full on bath. By the time we got to bed it was 11 and I had 5 hours of sleep coming to me at best. Those 5 hours included lots of tossing / turning, and not much sleeping. Oh well, 4 AM came and it was time to get up and go to work.

Breakfast was a little coffee, bagel with PB and cream cheese, fiber one pop tart, and 2 bananas. I arrived at transition pretty early and had plenty of time to get racked up and chat with some of my friends that were racing.

6:45 pre-race instructional meeting was followed a moment of silence for Sept. 11th and the national anthem. Elite's went off at 7:00 and men 39 and under went off at 7:01. The swim start was on the beach and at the start signal we ran into the water and were off. There was a lot of contact in the first few minutes. At one point I went to breathe on my right side and someone's hand ended up in my mouth. After a few minutes things settled in and I found some clear water. At one point there was a guy on my left that kept swimming into me even though there was plenty of water for him to swim next to me. After 7 strokes of getting wacked by this guy, I finally gave him a shove - enough buddy. After that, the rest of the swim was incident free. I exited the water in 30:45 – 1:27 minutes per 100 yards.

T1 included a run up the GIANT hill to the transition area. 2 minutes and 38 seconds later I was on my bike.

The bike course was enjoyable. I pushed fairly hard from the get go. At the 26 mile mark, I was on pace to go under 2:30. The wind picked up on the second half and I’m sure I fatigued a bit. I passed a few folks and a few folks passed me. I was surprised when a few elites passed me on the bike, I must have out swam them. Finished the bike in 2:34:54 – 21.7 MPH.

T2 was uneventful. Saw my buddy Jeremy Fletcher who was telling me that I had a sub 5 wrapped up, just need to settle into the run. 1 minute 8 seconds later, my visor was on and I was heading out for the half mary.

As I started the run I saw Paul Cavanaugh pull into transition. I knew that fast dude would soon be reeling me in, but I figured I’d make him earn it. Surprisingly, I settled right in for the run. I was out towards the front of the race, so it was pretty lonely out there for the first few miles. Eventually I saw some of the elites including the race leader making their way back. Around mile 6, I was caught by a guy in my age group that told me his hamstrings were cramping. I had some extra salt pills that I gave him and I think he eventually passed me. There were three turnarounds in the run, so you got to see lots of runners going by in the opposite direction. I saw a bunch of friends out there – Jason, Derek, Matthew, Peter to name a few – as well as some friends cheering. Of course at every turn around I could see Paul getting closer and closer to me – I felt like Chris Lieto waiting for the eventual pass by Crowie in Kona. After 11 miles, I was caught. Paul ran with me for about a mile or so, but he had more reserves and I told him not to slow down for me. There is a painful hill right at the end, but the sounds of the finish line helped me to power through it. As I came around towards the finisher shoot I saw Jeremy and Jeff Donatello. They said something about how I was smashing my 5 hour goal and I responded with something that included an F-bomb – I’m sorry to the parents and kids that were cheering and overheard that. When I crossed the line, I had absolutely nothing left in the tank. Run time was 1:40:08 – 7:38 minutes per mile. This was only 2 minutes and 40 seconds slower than my current standalone half marathon.

Nutrition:

1 Hammer Gel before the swim, 3 on the bike and 1 on the run
2 Salt Stick tables at the start of the bike, 1 hour, 2 hour, and middle of the run
500 Calories of liquid nutrition on the bike (drank about 3/4's of it) - 3 scoops of carbo pro and 1 scoop of Hammer HED

Final Results:

4:49:35
44th overall out of 349 finisher – (42nd if you exclude the two relay teams that beat me)
7th out of 25 in my age group
PR’s all around for the half distance.

Sara and Finn weren’t able to make it to the race, so that was a bummer. I told them all of the gory details of the race when I got home and a cheeseburger never tasted as good as it did that evening….

Finn hanging at the apple picking festival

My girlfriend all dressed up the night before the race

Transition before the race

My little spot in transition... All setup and ready to rock.

A view of the pond from the top of the hill. That hill is steeper than it looks

Reward from a hard effort... A juicy all natural burger...

And desert to boot.... Grilled peaches and vanilla ice-cream.

2010 Timberman 70.3 Race Report

2010-08-25T19:41:00.010-04:00

Back in January when I signed up for the Timberman 70.3 race, I set a goal of finishing 5 hours. This was a bit of a stretch goal seeing that the only half ironman race that I completed was in 5 hours 40 minutes on an easier coarse in Rhode Island last year. I mapped out a plan to break 5 hours that included a 30 minute swim split (1:25 per 100 yards), 2:40 bike split (21 MPH), a 1:43 run (7:50 minute miles), 5 minutes for T1/T2 and a couple minutes of fluff. These splits didn't seem unattainable with the proper work, but they were definitely not a slam dunk.

As typical for a triathlete balancing life, work, job, etc, I wasn't able to put in all of the training that I had hoped for leading up to the race, but I definitely did some hard work. My focus was on the bike and swim seemed to get pushed to the back of the priority line - the return on bike work can be huge when compared to gaining a couple minutes based on 10's of hours of following the black line in the pool. According to my training log, I’ve spent 51% of my time in this year on the bike (2145 miles), 34% on the run (554 miles), and 15% on the swim (87K meters).

Finn was born three weeks before the race and it has been a whirlwind. I was able to get some of my training in, but the broken/shortened sleep definitely took a toll. The workouts I got in felt pretty sluggish. Rather than peaking, I felt my fitness slowly fade away as race day approached. I reset my expectations and decided that I would be happy with a finish in the 5:15-5:20 range. Results aside, I was really looking forward to enjoying a great event with friends.

With Timberman being a fairly local big race, I knew about a dozen folks racing including the Lopez brothers - Mike and Val - that made their way of from Texas to race. Also the local triathlon club that I'm a member of would have a tent setup - creating a gathering spot for everyone's friends and family.

The week leading up to the race was pretty hectic, I was traveling on business and didn't get home until late Thursday evening. Friday's activities included getting ready for our Texas guests, making an airport run to pick the crew up, picking up my bike that was built up (finally) from the shop, and attempting to get dialed in on a new bike two days before an A race. As typical I ran into a few snags with the bike, but we got it to a race-able state.

Saturday was a long day of heading up to the site for check-in and bike drop off. Before racking our bikes, we went out for a 30 minutes tune-up ride. The Lopez brothers got to experience what I meant when I said the race course was right next to a ski mountain - a little different from the flat roads of Dallas. We also jumped into the lake for a quick swim before heading back to the seacoast for some carbo loading.

Race morning wake up was set for 3:30. Finn had other plans and I was up at 2:30 for a changing and rock back to sleep session. In full disclosure, I was offered a hall pass from this activity but the reality was I knew Sara had a longer day in store for her than I did. The logistics and fueling requirements of taking Finn to watch us race requires a report in itself. The changing / rocking session went a little over my goal time and when I laid back down at 3:20 I wasn't sure what the point was. 10 minutes later it was go time. A little coffee, breakfast, last minute gear checks, and we were on our way.

Arriving at transition for a large scale triathlon is one of the coolest experiences. It's 5:00 AM, still dark out but slowly getting light, athletes are bustling around, music is cranking, volunteers are body marking race numbers and ages, etc. There were 2800 signed up to race, including some of top pro's in the sport. I setup my transition area, talked with my neighbors in transition, and pretty much hung out waiting to be ushered over to the swim start.

My swim wave (M30-34) was 17 out of 18, so I had a bit of time to hang out before it was time to go. The weather was perfect, maybe 70 degrees. The water was clear and comfortable. We did a quick warm-up and watched as each wave was sent off in 5 minute intervals. The excitement was definitely in the air and I felt pretty comfortable - not really nervous. As my wave was on deck, I watched this guy in a speedo warm-up - I think he was the only person not swimming in a wetsuit in my wave. The speedo guy was swinging his arms around like Michael Phelps and he looked to be double jointed based on his flexibility. I heard him tell another guy that he was hoping to break 28 minutes - impressive for a non-wetsuit 1.2 mile open water swim.

As we got into the water for our 5 minute countdown, I lined up in the 2nd row back and a bit on the outside. I thought I might be a bit far forward, but would rather have a couple guys swim over me than get stuck in a traffic jam trying to swim over a bunch of bodies. We were off. I mimicked the earlier wave starts with a few dolphin dives in the shallow water before settling into a rhythm. Surprisingly, I didn't have anyone trying to swim over me and I didn't really hit any congestion. Being on the outside really helped me to find clear water. The first 3rd of the swim was pretty uneventful. The water was pretty smooth and I settled into a good rhythm. I tried to keep my effort at a minimum level - maybe 5/10. After the first 3rd or so, we started to hit a bit of traffic from the slower swimmers in the earlier waves. The turns at the buoy's were pretty uneventful as well. I continued to stay a bit outside - not 100% on purpose, I definitely did a bit of drifting and zig-zagging that added to the swim distance. As we were making our way towards the home stretch, I noticed the speedo guy was right next to me. Either I was having a great swim or he was having a terrible one. It was the latter - I exited the water just under 35 minutes. This was pretty much exactly where I should have been based on the effort level and the amount of time I put in at the pool leading up to the race. Swim time: 34:46 - 58/223 in my age group and 463 overall.

T1 was fine. I made my way over to the wetsuit strippers, they were mostly kids volunteering. I ran past 3 kids and went right over to the biggest adult I saw. I laid down and he pealed me like a banana. I actually got up and started running without taking my wetsuit, but he threw a nice pass which I caught like I was going for the end zone. Dumped my goggles / wetsuit, threw on my helmet / race belt / sunglasses, and I was off. T1 time: 1:49

The bike started with a nice mount; I got my feet into my shoes and was up to speed as we approached the first turn and started the climb out of the race site. I didn't feel too great during the first 3-5 miles, but I tried to stay patient knowing I would settle in. The first 10 or so miles of the ride is mostly climbing. I tried not to kill myself early, but I didn't want to start out too slow either. As I crested the large climb - Marsh Hill there was a lady dressed as a devil cheering folks on - I knew it was time to get into gear. I kept a good tempo for miles 10-35 and it started to rain as I was about halfway through the bike leg. As I was making my up the long false flats of miles 35-40, I really started to feel the fatigue in my legs. From a cardiovascular standpoint, I felt good. From a muscular endurance point of view, my legs were entering a world of hurt. The climb up the backside of Marsh hill wasn't as bad as I remembered from my reconnaissance ride, but I rode the breaks down the descent due to the wet roads. I was pretty happy to hear the crowds as I made my way back to the transition area and it was time to get off of the bike. Bike time: 2:38:57 (21.1 MPH) - 49/223 in my age group and 354 overall.

T2 was quick and uneventful. Dismount, run over to my bike rack, helmet off, visor on, go time! T2: 2:05.

As I made my way out of transition, I can't begin to describe the excitement at the start of the run course. The run out chute is lined with cheering spectators, including my crew at the Seacoast Tiptide tent. As I made my way by, I saw the crew, Sara, and Finn. I pulled over, gave Sara a sweaty kiss, and made my way out for the run with a smile on my face. As I pulled away from the screaming crowds, the pain began to set in. Those first two miles were some of the toughest two miles that I've run. My stomach was in rough shape; maybe from the nutrition I took in on the bike - 3 Hammer Gel's, 1 bottle Hammer HED, 1 bottle HED and Carbo-Pro, 4 salt stick pills. I was running right around 8 minute miles - I knew it was a little slower than my goal, but during those first two miles I thought I was destined for a long slog of walking and jogging. After the first two miles, I settled in but I didn't feel comfortable enough to pick up the pace. It was a two loop course and the energy going back around the transition area and through the gauntlet of cheering spectators pumped me up. I went into a bad place on miles 8-10, but after that I knew I could battle through another 5K. I was tracking my time and knew I wasn't going to beat 5 hours, but was pretty pumped to know I wasn't far from striking distance. The last mile felt great as I picked it up quite a bit. Crossing the finish line and hearing your name across the speakers is a great feeling after such a long hard effort. Run time: 1:46:35 (8:06 minute miles) – 76/223 and 477 overall.

When I crossed the line I was given my finisher medal by Chrissie Wellington. How cool is it that the top female pro triathlete in the world (3 time world champion that only a select group of male pro triathletes can beat) hung around after her win and gave out medals to all of the age groupers?

Final time: 5:04:35 – over a 35 minute PR at this distance
56/223 in the M30-34 age group
344 overall

I wound up finishing 5 minutes slower than the goal I set at the beginning of the year, but it is tough to be disappointed with that finish. It definitely beat the expectations that I had going into the race. Overall an amazing event and I’m really grateful to have been able to spend it with great friends and family. Congrats to all of my friends that finished including a couple PR’s and first time finishers.

Next event is the Pumpkinman Half Ironman on September 12th. Does anyone smell a sub 5 hour finish?

The Lopez brothers - Mike and Val - get their bikes built up after the flight in

They say you should get a good night's sleep two nights before the race. Finn and I took that advice - on Julie and Jordy's couch during "outdoor movie night"

Monty and Val sandwiched between the bikes on the way to check-in

Hanging at the race expo.

Race morning. Transition is buslting

The sun is starting to rise and excitement is in the air

My transition setup. I only had 10 miles on my QR CD0.1 at that point. Check out me aero-bar horizontal water bottle holder.

The lake was glass for the start

Monty, Charlie, and Wendy handing at the Seacoast Riptide tent. This was the "gauntlet" we ran through.

My biggest fans - Sara and Finn

Heading by the riptide tent on my way out for lap 2

The Texas crew enjoying lunch in Portsmouth the day after the race

Having a recovery beverage with Finn

White Rock Marathon 2009

2009-12-15T16:12:00.000-05:00

Those of you that read about my wonderful experience – read extreme pain – in the New York marathon are aware that I was also signed up to run the Dallas White Rock marathon exactly 6 weeks later. This was a decision I obviously made prior to New York because not many sane people would do this to themselves.

Surprisingly I recovered well after New York. After a couple days of gingerly descending the stairs in our home, I was able to get a few swims and easy spins on the bike to flush out the lactic acid from my legs. I eased into running a week after the marathon with a couple easy runs. Two weeks later I was back at it with a 52 mile week that included a tough interval session and a twenty mile long run. It appears that the body might not have been ready for that load because two easy runs later I injured a muscle in the lower right calf area. After 4 days off, I learned that the calf was still in rough shape when I had to turn back and cut a planned 6 mile run down to a 3 miler. The calf was given an 8 day hiatus from running, but I was able to keep my fitness up with 6 sessions on the bike. During the taper week leading up to Dallas, I was optimistic that the calf would hold up after a pain free five miler and an easy 3 mile tune-up. Bring on the White Rock!

We headed down to Dallas Friday afternoon and were greeted by great friends at the airport. Friday night included just a bit of liquid carbo loading, some entertaining hibachi tricks, and some healthy laughter. Saturday was a great pre-race day with some good chow, relaxing, a little manual labor, hanging at the race expo, and some delicious pasta.

Sunday’s wakeup call came at 5:00 AM. When I headed down to the kitchen to fuel up, I was greeted by a half asleep Mike Lopez shoveling oatmeal into his mouth. Mike gave a caveman like grunt. Mike would later wake up in time to rock out his first marathon. After some coffee, banana, bagel, water, and perpetuem I was good to go. We headed over to pick up Monty and Julie Hardy – they would be running their first half marathons – and we were off to the race start.

After the usual pre-race routine...

... we headed over to the starting area.

With a single start for the 20,000 marathon, half marathon, and relay runners, the place was a zoo. I quickly lost Mike, Julie and Monty. I have to say this race was night and day from an organizational standpoint when compared to NY. Everyone was grouped according to their estimated finish time/pace with the faster runners in the “A” group and the slowest runners in the “E” group. I was assigned to start in the “C” group even though I entered 3:30 as my estimated finish time. At the start area, I noticed that the 3:30 pace team was lined up at the very front of the “B” group. I worked my way up there seeing that was the group I planned on running with. It turns out that either lots of people went to the wrong starting area, overestimated their pace, or the race organizers really messed up. The first 4 miles were spent weaving around lots of slower runners that started in the “A” group – It had to be literally over 1000 people. Everyone was pretty frustrated with the need to weave for 4 miles.

Not willing to make the same mistake as New York, I planned to stick with the cliff bar 3:30 pace team led by Vince from Cleveland. I actually shared my New York story with Vince and we made a deal – I agreed to stick with him longer than 2 miles and he agreed to not pass me like I was standing still at mile 22. We were off!

Mile 1: 8:14
Mile 2: 8:10
Mile 3: 7:41
Mile 4: 7:44
Mile 5: 7:37
Mile 6: 7:53
Mile 7: 7:43
Mile 8: 7:52

I had been running with Vince for the entire time, and at this point I realized he wasn't the most consistent pacer. I pulled away from Vince a bit and ran with a guy named Tim who was running his 5th White Rock and was hoping for his first sub 3:30. We only ended up about 100 or so yards ahead of the 3:30 group and were running about the same pace as them – we were hoping to be a bit more consistent though.

Mile 9: 7:52
Mile 10: 8:08
Mile 11: 8:19
Mile 12: 7:36
Mile 13: 8:22
Half Marathon: 1:44:03
Mile 14: 8:12
Mile 15: 8:03

15 miles into the race my legs really started to fatigue. Hamstrings and quads started to ache quite a bit.

Mile 16: 8:07
Mile 17: 8:01
Mile 18: 8:03
Mile 19: 7:47

19 miles into the race we completed our loop around White Rock lake and were on our way back to the finish area at the American Airlines center.

Mile 20: 8:10
Mile 21: 8:07

At this point we hit the “Dolly Parton” hills – two short steep hills that follow each other. There is always an unofficial aid station with large men dressed up as Dolly Parton (use your imagination) at these hills. It was the perfect time for a good chuckle. Unfortunately, Tim dropped back here. This was also the point when I was wacked in the shoulder by Vince’s 3:30 balloons – he had made up the 100 yards. I told him I had been waiting for him. Truth was, my legs were really throbbing. I couldn’t convince myself to slow down though. No excuse I thought of - especially the throbbing legs - was good enough.

Mile 22:7:36

Once again Vince proved that he wasn’t the most accurate pacer. Really nice guy, great runner, but he couldn’t hold that even 8 min/mile I was hoping for. I figured I would stick with him and the group anyway (by now there were only about a half dozen in the group, down from well over 20) - just in case I came up with better excuses to slow down.

Mile 23: 7:52
Mile 24: 8:05
Mile 25: 7:44

At this point, I knew I would beat 3:30. I was in quite a bit of pain. I opted to enjoy the last mile as best as I could rather than try to pick it up. In reality, I probably didn’t have much pick-up in me.

Mile 26: 8:32
Last .2: 2:02

Finish time: 3:29:31 – 7:59 minutes per mile
1st Half: 1:44:03
2nd Half: 1:45:28

Finished 390th place out of 4,063 finishers
Finished 351st place out of 2504 male finishers
Finished 49th place out of 376 male 30-34 finishers

PR by 4 minutes and 43 seconds!

Interesting statistic…. Over the last 6 miles, I passed 83 runners and 15 runners passed me.

I was greeted at the finish line by a smiling Sara who ignored the sweat, salt, and stank that only 26.2 miles can create and gave me a big hug. I was hurting pretty badly, dehydrated and cramping – the worst was a 30 second calf cramp during which I couldn’t put my heal on the ground even though I was applying all of my force with two hands pushing down on my knee. Ouch.

Recovery was handled Dallas style with some Tex Mex and Tacate at Mi Cosina and hanging with friends. Congrats to Mike, Monty and Julie on their respective 1st time marathons and half marathons – I look forward to your thorough race reports ;).

Only a little over 8 months to go until the next big event – Timberman 70.3. I foresee some quality time in the pool and on the saddle in my future.

2009-11-02T13:54:00.000-05:00

It probably makes sense to share a little background on the training leading up the race. They say you should be running a few times a week for about a year before training for a marathon. According to my 2008 training log I ran 781 miles and my 2009 log was about on that pace with 335 miles through June – not bad considering the challenge of running through winter in NH. Over the course of the 16 weeks leading up to the marathon I logged additional 479 miles – about 65 hours of pounding the pavement. My training plan was an intermediate plan from Burt Yasso CRO (Chief Running Officer) of Runner’s World magazine. The plan consisted of 5 runs a week ranging from easy runs, long runs, intervals, hills, and marathon pace runs. The plan called out for 562 miles of running; so I was pretty happy hitting most of the plan given work and life schedules.

Sara and I headed down to New York on Friday afternoon. We stayed at the Hilton in Manhattan on 6th Ave, which was one of the two main marathon headquarter hotels. Arriving on Friday was great because it allowed me to head over to the Expo for race number pick-up and avoid the Saturday crowd. The number pickup process was incredibly quick, the organizers did a great job of keeping things streamlined. Back at the hotel I met Abdi Abdiraham, one of the top US runners and a super nice guy. He told me he was shooting to break 2:10:00. Abdi would go on to run a 2:14:00 for 9th place, sub 2:10:00 would have put him on the podium and in contention – the winner ran 2:09:15. The rest of Friday night was pretty uneventful, dinner – blah, walked around a bit, hit the hay.

Earlier in the week I saw a twitter/tweet from Lance Armstrong stating that he was planning on going for a jog in Central Park on Saturday AM and invited folks to join him. There was no chance of me passing up that opportunity. About 100-200 people showed up at NikeTown on 5th Ave Saturday morning. We were all hanging around when all of a sudden Lance appeared, someone whistled, and we were running. This was probably the most dangerous run of my life, everyone was trying to get up front to run next to Lance. I was able to run side by side with him for 1-2 minutes at a couple points during the run. Got to talk with him a bit and thank him. Joan Benoit Samuelson also ran with the group. She was super nice, and at the age of 52 she would go on to run a 2:49:09 to finish 17th overall for the women. The run lasted about 4-5 miles through Central Park, Lance said a few words, and jumped in a Taxi before being swarmed. Lance wasn’t running the marathon on Sunday, but was in town for Livestrong promotions.

Lance giving some advice which I promptly ignored....

The rest of Saturday was spent eating great food and walking around the city. We walked to a point where my legs were sore and my knees ached a bit. Probably not the smartest thing to do a pre-marathon, but we were in New York and weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to take in the city. We met some great friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant called Supper. Dinner was great; the company was even better. My abs got a good workout from belly laughing. After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and I was asleep by 10.

Dinner with the Fusco's at Supper

Sunday started with a 4:30 AM wakeup call. I was very well rested thanks to the clock change and the early night. Although I wasn’t racing until 9:40 AM, I was on a 5:00 bus to the starting line. You can imagine the logistics of getting 42K+ people over to the start of the race. The temp outside the hotel was pretty warm, so I opted to leave some of my warmer clothes behind and just wore a through away long sleeve T-shirt over the shirt I was racing in. I realized this was a bad move when arrived at the start where it was about 10 degrees cooler and windy. The smarter folks had sweats, blankets, etc. It was amazing arriving in Staten Island at 5:40 AM and being cheered by about 30 screaming volunteers. The starting area was huge and setup with Dunkin Donuts coffee, bagels, water, and hundreds of porta potties. I spent the next 3 hours doing my best to stay warm. I drank a little coffee, ate a bagel, drank my bottle of Hammer Perpetuem (electrolyte drink with about 400 calories), drank some water, visited the porta potty a few times, met some really cool people, etc.

At 9 AM I headed over to the starting corral. I was in the 1st wave going off with the Pro Men. The Pro’s were actually on the upper deck of the bridge and I was on the deck below them – with about 10K of my closest friends. I was given some good advice as we made our way on to the bridge – stay to the middle. It turns out that some people pee off of the top bridge, so you can get a not so nice surprise if you are on the outside of the lower bridge. Although I didn’t see anyone get sprinkled on, I was happy to have been given the advice. After a few minutes of waiting on the bridge, we were off.

My plan was to stick with the 3:30 Timex pace group – 8 minute miles – for the first 10 miles and then pick it up a bit if I felt good. From my training, I knew that when I went out a little slower on my long runs I could pick it up and still feel good around 19/20 miles. I also knew from experience that going out at 7:50 and 7:40 led to bad things at mile 19/20. All I had to do was stick with the Timex guy and I would keep myself out of trouble.

The first mile was slow uphill and extremely crowed and the second mile was downhill and fast as the Timex guy tried to get us back on pace

Mile 1 - 9:90
Mile 2 - 7:18
Mile 3 - 8:03

At this point, I got sick of running with the pace group – way too crowded – so I picked it up a bit. As I replay this moment in my mind, I keep yelling at myself “Noooooooooooooooooo”, but the outcome is always the same….

Mile 4 - 7:35
Mile 5 – 7:34
Mile 6 - 7:38
Mike 7 -7:38

I knew I was running too fast, but I just hoped that the energy from the enormous crowds would allow me to keep this pace up.

Mile 8 - 7:42
Mile 9 - 7:54
Mile 10 - 7:37
Mile 11 - 7:55
Mile 12 - 7:48
Mike 13 - 7:52

13.1 - 1:42:43. This was faster than my previous standalone half marathon PR by 2 seconds.

Mile 14 - 7:54
Mile 15 - 8:09
Mile 16 – 7:57
Mile 17 – 7:46
Mile 18 – 7:46

At this point I was almost 3 minutes under my goal pace of 3:30 and on track to get close to 3:25. Unfortunately, this is also the point when the wheels started to come off the bus

Mile 19 – 8:07
Mile 20 – 8:28

Fatigue really set in at this point as I smashed right into the wall. How did it feel? It is hard to describe. My heart and lungs felt great, but my legs were heavy, slow, and achy. I much as I willed them to, they just wouldn’t turn over quickly.

Mile 21 – 8:35
Mile 22 – 8:47
Mile 23 - 9:07

At this point, my legs started to cramp up. The pain and heaviness didn’t go away either. On top of the pain I had been dealing with for the past 3 miles, I would get a sharp cramp in each calve as I pushed off. My quads were kind enough to only cramp up every few strides. I’m still not sure why I cramped up. I hydrated well leading up to the race, had water and an electrolyte drink pre-race, alternated between Gatorade and water at every aid station, took Hammer gel every 45 minutes, and the temp was in the 50’s. The cramps made the next three miles about the most painful of my life, but I made myself keep going.

Mile 24 – 9:43
Mike 25 – 9:15

The crowds in Central Park were awesome, unfortunately I was in too much pain to really enjoy them.

Mile 26 – 8:56
Last .2 – 1:52

Just like that it was over. My final time was 3:34:14 – 8 minute and 11 seconds per mile. Just 4 minutes and 15 seconds shy of my goal. That put me at:
• 6190 out of 43,374
• 5323rd overall male finisher
• 878 out of 3924 in the male 30-34 age group
• PR by over 32 minutes

Over the last 5/6 miles it felt like thousands of people passed me, and it turns out that they did. If I kept up my pace and ran a 3:25 I would have finished around 4000th place, so about 2K people passed me in the last miles. Looking back, I obviously went out too fast and should have stuck with my original plan. Even if it didn’t change my finish time by much, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the last miles much more if I had started out more conservatively.

New York is a must do race for marathoners; I highly recommend it and would do it again. The course was much tougher than I expected, with long climbs and long descents that trash your quads. The crowds are unbelievable ;their energy and the excitement the create is amazing. My recommendation to anyone running New York would be the following…. Slow down, don’t try to PR. Enjoy the sights and the crowds. High five people in the Bronx, Queens. Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Raise your hands in the air as you run that final mile through central park. If I ever run New York again, my goal will be 4 hours, giving me enough time to really enjoy the experience.

December 13th in Dallas is another story though. There my goal will be to break 3:30. 6 more weeks to prepare….

Rhode Island Ironman 70.3

2009-07-17T09:45:00.000-04:00

A few people have asked how it went, so here’s a quick race report from the Amica Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island event last weekend. The day started with a 3 AM wakeup call. It was difficult to eat so early in the morning because I was still stuffed from a great dinner the night before in Federal Hill. We took a bus from Providence to the swim start in Narragansett beach. It was 5 AM and still dark out when we arrived, but the transition area was bustling with athletes and volunteers. After getting body marked, I went to check out my bike, pumped my tires, and got my swim to run transition area setup.

The 1.2 mile swim was in a protected beach with jetties that went out from the beach and also a jetty that is parallel to the beach about ¾ of a mile out. Unfortunately, a storm had rolled in the night before and the jetties weren’t doing their job of keeping the water calm. It was extremely choppy and the storm actually moved several of the course buoys – causing the race to be delayed 25 minutes. The water was actually so rough, that they made an announcement stating that anyone wanting to skip the swim because of the rough water could do so. I have to admit, I thought about it.

At 6:25 the pro men went off and the pro women went 2 minutes after them. At 6:30, the age group waves started. Each age group wave was ushered though a coral system with gates. Every 5 minutes another wave would go off and your group would move to the next section of the corral. It felt like we were cattle. Next thing I knew, I was standing at the edge of the water and the cannon shot. The water was really rough which made it hard to get a rhythm. You would swim up the crest of a wave and then come crashing back down the other side of it. It wasn’t fun when I would turn my head to breath and get a mouthful of salt water, and it was also difficult to see the buoys unless you were on top of a wave. Somehow I made it out of the water in 32 minutes, but I was so disoriented from getting tossed around that it took me two minutes to run the 50 meters to the timing mat at the edge of beach. My official time for the swim was 34:11 – 65/186 in my age group.

In the swim to bike transition area, they had wetsuit strippers. You would lay down on a mat and the volunteer would peel you like a banana. I found my bike and was off fairly quickly. I saved some time by jumping on my bike barefoot with my shoes already clipped to the pedals, but I think I lost an equal amount of time fiddling with my Velcro straps while trying to get my feet in my shoes while riding. T1 – 2:41

The bike ride was great for the first 10 miles with nice flat roads and a tail wind. After we hit about mile 10 or so, the rolling hills started. Some of them we pretty tough, but all the spectators on the side of the road made the 56 miles fly by. I was passed by some folks that were absolutely flying – everyone should experience the sound of a disk wheel flying by at greater than 25 MPH. I hit 42 MPH on one downhill section, but I went all the way down to 6 MPH at one point on the climb at mile 45. The last section of the ride was pretty crazy as we went through a rough section of providence – it looked like a triathlon graveyard as people lost water bottles / spare tubes / spare tires / etc from the pot holes and railroad tracks. I ended the bike at 2:58:07 / 18.9 MPH – 112/186 in my age group.

T2 was pretty uneventful. I made a nice dismount with the pedals still on the bike. Dropped off my bike, through on my shoes/visor, hit the porta potty, and was off. T2 – 2:40

I felt great at the start of the run, plenty of energy. About a half mile into the run, I met the hill. The two loop run course takes you up an incredibly steep ½ mile long hill. This hill was used for the street luge event when the X-Games was held in Providence. During a race overview on Saturday, the race director offered to announce the name of any age group competitor that ran the entire hill without walking some point of it. Let’s just say my name wasn’t announced. I ran the 1^st half of the hill, walked the steepest potion, and then picked it back up as the grade became more reasonable. The remainder of the 1^st loop went great, I was just chugging along. My first loop was 56 minutes – 8:37 min/mile – and I was thrilled. At the beginning of the second loop I saw my wife and friends, which was great. I gave Sara a quick kiss – caught on video – and was off for the 2^nd loop. Did I mention, that this was a two loop course and we were lucky enough to meet the hill a second time. After walking most of the hill the 2^nd time, I was off. A short while after the hill my legs started cramping up pretty badly. I didn’t take my electrolyte pills on the bike as planned and I was really feeling it. All I could do was try to take in as much Gatorade as I could to hydrate the muscles and battle through it. I pretty much blew up and had a much slower 2^nd loop of 1:07:06 – 10:19 min/mile. I ended the run in 2:03:04 / 9:24 pace – 93/186 in my age group.

My overall time was 5:40:43 – 687/1306 overall and 90/186 in my age group. It was an amazing event and I can’t wait for my next one. There were some unbelievably inspiring athletes of all ages – men and women their 40’s / 50’s / 60’s that kicked my butt. The volunteers and spectators were awesome. We wrapped up the weekend with an awesome time of kicking back with friends, drinking a few celebratory cocktails, and eating some great food.