Summer here and the racing is fast and furious. Sunday brings 4 major IM Races:

Coeur d’Alene
Ironman France
Ironman 70.3 Buffalo Springs Lake
Ironman Switzerland

Closer to home we have the Parvin St. Park Sprint, (Saturday) and Philly Sprint (Saturday) and Olympic (Sunday)

Good luck to all the participants! Be Fast, Be Safe and Have FUN!!

Pictures are up! Triathlon Pictures

I’m probably not going to buy any of these pictures though. None of them are any better than ones I already have.

Short version:
1/2 mi swim, 17.5 mi bike, 5 mi run

Swim 14:45 1:41/100 56th overall (out of 723)
T1 2:46
Bike 50:40 20.1 146th overall
T2 1:17
Run 41:41 8:20/mile 315th overall
Total: 1:51:09
156th overall,
26/86 AG

Last year when I participated in this event, I surprised myself with my results. Since I was training for long events at that time, I figured that I didn’t have the speedwork necessary to come up with a good result. I ended up with a top 100 finish (overall) and top 10 AG finish. 1:45:46

This year I had absolutely no ambitions, and less pressure to try and match the previous years results. My “training” has been completely unstructured, more like daily workouts than true training. But I really had a great time last year. So this year’s plan was to improve in my FUN score.

The course is a 1/2 mile swim in a very small lake, 17.5 mile bike on an undulating suburban course, and 5 mile run, with one short, very sharp climb.

This race always brings out an enormous variety of people. All the local hot shoes show up, so it can be very competitive. There are also a very large number of newbies and complete 1st timers. As a two-time IM finisher, I got peppered with questions from a lot of newbie guys in my AG transition area. That was fun, as I felt like a real pro. Hope some of my answers were accurate!

The race is broken into 5 waves: Elites, All women, men 30-39, men 40-49, then a final wave of older men, younger men and relays.

I got off to a very good swim by staging myself in the very front. There was only one guy to my left, and he powered ahead of me like he had a propeller coming out his backside. I hit the first turn and started running into the previous wave. As I hit the second turn and headed back to the beach, I started running into a LOT more swimmers. At this point in the swim, we were headed due east, right into the rising sun. Between the sun, glare off the water and fogged goggles, I was completely blind. As a result, I ended up drifting off course. By the time I realized my mistake, I was about 75 yards off course. I finally saw the final buoy and headed to shore. I was out of the water in 12:46, but the timing mat is about 300 yds away, so my chip time showed 14:45. This year the run from the lake to T1 was significantly shorter, and fewer gravel sections. That made the dash to T1 a lot more fun.

With a full roster of over 735 athletes there are a lot of people on the bike course. Lots of folks passed me and I passed a fair share as well. This was the first time I had the race bike with full race setup out since IMFL in November. In fact, this is the first time I’ve been ON this bike since IMFL. As I powered along the rolling course I remembered how well this bike fits me, and how much fun it is to cruise in the aero position at a high rate of speed. When I hit the turn around point on the course, I had this huge smile on my face. I was having a blast.

The rest of the bike section was uneventful. Last year on one of the last, fast corners, I damn near went down, sliding the rear wheel almost all the way out from under me. Only smacking the curb saved me from going down. This year, I was extra careful on the corners. This resulted in a lot of folks passing me.

Back into transition at 50:40, 20.1/mph avg. There was a slight scare as the guy just in front of me went down as he dismounted, and slammed his bike into mine. No damage, no blood, no foul.

Reasonably quick T2 (1:17) includes the jog from dismount to transition space, and the jog back out to the run start.

Out on the run, I felt really heavy and slow. My legs were more loaded up than during any brick that I had done so far this year. I kept a comfortable pace, and about 5 min into the run, the legs and lungs opened up and I started to pick up the pace. I hit mile one at 9:03, and had to pull over to get a rock out of my shoe. Back on the course I hit the first water stop, powered down a gel, and some H2O and kept moving. Mile two was a 9:02 (including the rock stop and slowdown for water). Between mile 2 and 3 I began to get a nasty knot in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what this was from, since I hadn’t eaten anything unusual that morning. I figured it must have been the 2nd Red Bull on the drive up to the race, and would soon “pass” Mile 3 hit at 8:50, Mile 4 at 7:33 (must have been short) and mile 5 at 8:something, for a 41:41. Final time 1:51:09.

Somewhere during the 2nd half of the bike and the run finish, I found the magic that makes me love this sport. I thought I had lost that spark somewhere along the course at IMFL. Today I remembered how much fun it is to JF-Race and have fun. Leave your expectations behind, suit up, throw down and let the race happen. I remembered how much fun is involved in this sport, and how much I love it!

For comparison – 2006 results
13:54 23/635
48:18 21.1 46/635
40:03 8:01 230/635
1:45:46, 76/635 10/107 AG (1st, and only top 10 finish ever)

Jeremy is competing in his first IM at Lake Placid this year! Seem’s like I’m not the only idiot who signs up for the toughest IM for their “initiation” But he’s not just doing it for himself, he’s got a higher purpose: Iron Ventures: From the bottom of my heart…

Be sure to stop by his Janus Charity Challenge site and ante up!

Good Luck Jeremy! We’ll watch for you on the course!

Yeah Baby!! It’s FINALS 2007 Go Spurs Go!!!

Julie Amero’s conviction has been overturned! />The wheels of justice grind slowly, but the do seem to work from time to time.

Anita’s house sits in a hollow between two pretty good hills. This morning’s run sent me up the bigger of the two. Today’s run was around 7 miles, 9:45 pace, but the was a killer…

Posting from sunny San Antonio! We are here on vacation, visiting with family and friends and having a blast.

Found a great running trail from the house yesterday, and today swam at the GORGEOUS NISD Natatorium. 20×25 yard lanes, for $4 per session!! Can’t beat that.

More later!

So far the “every day in May” mantra is working. Even if some of the days only include a weight set, or a short ride with Fran, it counts. Even the 4 hours of trail maintenance counted (as and upper body/core session!). Boy did THAT count.

Let’s see if I can keep it up during my vacation. At the very least I may be in for a week of all running, all the time. Our hotel has an exercise facility, but I’m guessing from the pictures that it is pretty small, with limited equipment. I’ll just have to find places to run!

On a different note, I scrubbed off the old Ubuntu Dapper Drake install, and put on the Feisty Fawn. I expected a HUGE fight with the wireless and WPA2-Personal setup, but lo-&-behold! instructions at UbuntuGuide.org seemed to work flawlessly. I used the instructions that started with

However I found a much easier way to install the drivers, this will probably work on 32 bit as well

I can confirm that they do work with 32-bit FF… The wireless drivers detected that I was running WPA2, prompted for my key and connected me right up. Very, very slick.

Part of my recovery from the DNF-implosion of NJM makes me pay a lot more attention to coaches who have a long history of success. This popped into my head today..

“Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win” – Bobby Knight

Umm. Yea. Puts a fine point on my lack of training…

Every Day In May…

today 6:00am, 1:03 run, 6.78 miles, legs stiff, heavy and sore.
upper body weights 2:45-3:15.

moving forward…