Scott Ellis - Amateur Triathlete

Subase New London Sprint Triathlon

2011-10-08T10:18:00.004-04:00

Official Results: 4th OA, 1st AG M30-39, Time: 40:00
Swim - 1/4 mile, Bike - 6.2 miles, Run 1.5 miles

This race was an unscheduled race and had found out about it from my dad literally about 4 days prior to it being held and since it was the first year that they were doing it, the race entry was free! That's right, free! How could I pass up a race that was free to enter and all I had to do was show up. I was little skeptical about the race being free since it was being held on the subase and the possible disorganization that could come along with this, but since it was free, I thought what the hell, why not?

With the race being so last minute and early in the morning, I ended up driving to CT by myself since Jess had plans that Saturday night. I drove down on Friday night so that I wasn't getting up at 3am and then making the long drive down to CT that morning. That would have been crazy!

The race course was as follows. The swim started at the Subase Marina and was a one mass wave start swim from the water in the Thames River. I was little worried about a single wave swim start since it was a sprint. The good thing was that there wasn't too many people in the race, about 100 or so, so it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The bike was an out and back 3 loop course which was tough because the turn around got pretty jammed up with people making the turn around. The run was all flat since and was an easy out and back course.

Swim 1/4 Mile: 10th OA; 10:41 (2:39/100m)
I knew that going into the swim it was going to be rough. I haven't done any swimming what so ever this year. This was the first time I had done any swimming at all and let me tell you, I was a little tired at the end of only a .25 mile swim. The tough part about the swim was that as you neared the first buoy there was some serious current that was pulling you once you made the turn and you really had to fight it to stay on course. I was literally swimming sideways to stay straight. Once you made it closer to shore after that buoy the current helped bring you back in, which was great. Once I got back to the dock you had to pull yourself out of the water and run back up to the transition area. The transition area was nice and spread out, but the only down side was not having proper bike racks. As I made my way into transition I knew I would make a quick change to the bike since I swam without my wetsuit and I had my quickest T1 ever! 31 seconds, good enough to have the fastest T1 for the race. I was psyched when I found that out after the race!

Bike 6.2 Miles: 3rd OA; 17:55 (20.7 mph)
Once I exited T1 and headed out on the bike, I was hoping to really hammer down and put it all out there. It was a rolling hill course, but the downhills I was able to hit like 35 mph. It was really the turn arounds that slowed this course down, otherwise I definitely would have averaged 21 to 22mph overall. I felt pretty solid on the bike with my Zipp 404's on humming away. Towards the end of the bike leg my left calf was starting to cramp up, but quickly went away as I stretched it coming into T2. As I came into T2, I ended up running into a race official that wasn't paying attention and was in the way of me coming into the transition area...pay attention people. That was pretty annoying and it ended up costing me my a place. Not that it mattered though, because I gave up 2 or 3 spots trying to get my shoes laced up to run and pull my shoes on. I think if I continue to race next year, I might invest in a pair of triathlon shoes so I can easily slip them on and off. Once I exited T2 I quickly caught the 2 people that passed in T2. I also was surprised at how many people I picked off on the bike, I was in 5th or 6th when I exited.

Run 1.5 Miles: 1st OA; 9:12 (6:08/mile)
I was hoping that I would have the fastest run as this is where I excel about 90 to 99% of the time. It's just a shame the run leg wasn't longer as I probably would have picked up another place. As I came to the finish I was within 5 seconds of catching the next person in front of me. The difference was that he had a kick, and I didn't as I was already maxed out. I believe this is also because of my lack of training this year.

Post Race:
All and all this was a very well run race for the first year and would recommend doing it again. Not only was it well run, but the prizes were awesome as well considering that the race was free! I have been to many other races that have been run for years that have been run a lot worse than this. So hats off to all of the volunteers and race officials that made this race possible. They did an unbelievable job. Hopefully I can do this one again.

Next report, Call to Honor. Check back soon, but it might be awhile though as I'm getting married in a few weeks and finding time to do blog posts, has been next to impossible. As you can tell since this race was 2 months ago!

Jennifer Tinney 5 Mile Road Race - July 4th

2011-08-07T06:43:00.004-04:00

Official Results: 2nd OA, 1st AG M30-39, Time:29:21 (5:43/mile)

It's been awhile since I've posted to my blog, about 8 months to be exact. The truth is I haven't had the time to post and with our wedding coming up in a couple of months my training and racing this year has taken a back seat and to be honest it has been great not being tied into a regimented training/racing schedule and stressing myself out on not meeting my training goals. However, I do miss the competitiveness of racing!

Well, despite my lack of training I have decided to do a least a few races this year and one of them was the Jennifer Tinney 5 Miler in Boxford, MA. I found out about it searching on coolrunning.com for a race to do on the 4th of July that was close enough to home. I also thought that it was a great cause since the money from the race went towards a scholarship setup at one of the local high schools in Jennifer Tinney's name. This race was perfect! Needless to say I looked at the previous years results to see how I might far against my possible competition and it looked like I had a shot at the top 10.

Race day was warm and humid! Jess and I got there early so I could check in and warm up. After a descent warm up and stretching session it was time to line up! Once the gun was off the adrenaline was pumping, but I thought to myself I know I won't have much left a the end so I shouldn't go out to hard...I tried to back off a little, but I still came through Mile 1 at 5:34..too fast! I was in second place the entire race and I ended up losing sight of the race leader after the 2nd mile, so I mostly on my own for rest of the race. The good thing was that a few weeks prior to the race I ran the course so that I knew where it went in case this happened.

Overall the race went well! I was surely surprised to take 2nd place overall and win my new Age group M 30-39! It was awesome! After I came through the finish line I ended up being interviewed by the local newspaper, The Eagle Tribune and come to find out I ended up in there with 2 photos, 1 of everyone lined up at the start and 1 of me coming down to the finish line. Here is a link to the article.
http://www.eagletribune.com/sports/x1435411517/North-Andover-10-year-old-dazzles-at-Tinney-5-mile-race/print

Up next Call to Honor Triathlon on September 11th. Hopefully, I can make a descent showing again at this race! Wish me luck!

2010 Feaster 5 Miler - Andover, MA

2010-11-28T07:55:00.003-05:00

Official Results: 32nd OA, 13th AG M20-29, Time: 30:34 (6:06/mile)

This is such a great race that is so close to home that it's hard for me to turn this one down. It's amazing that year after year they still get over 8,000 runners between the 5 Miler and the 5k. Even though I had sprained my ankle over a month ago I decided to sign up for it about a week before the race. After I spoke with my physical therapist she said that it would okay if I ran it. The good thing was that she taped it up for me 2 days prior and said go test it out with a walk/job/walk/jog and see how it feels and then ice it down after. After I did that the day before the race, it felt great and I didn't have any pain so I went back to the PT's office and had them re-tape it so that it would be nice and tight on Turkey Day.

This year I went to this race solo since we were driving down to CT for Thanksgiving this year, but also so Jess could go for a walk since trying to go for a walk in a sea of 8,000 + people is next to impossibly if you really want to get a good walk in. I don't blame her for that! I got to the race about an hour before hand so that I could go through the normal stretching and warm up routine. I also ran into some of my ex co-workers Tracy and Jason and it was great to see them for a short while.

Race morning was pretty chilly with the temperature around 28, but with the wind it felt like 20! I was cold most of the morning trying to warm up before the race and right up until 5 minutes before the start I was still contemplating whether to run with my jacket or without. I ended up running without it and I was perfect temperature wise once the race started considering I had my under armour top on and a long sleeve shirt on top of that. The goal of this race was to finish and not to hurt my ankle considering if I did roll it I could possibly break it and/or tear all the ligaments in it. I started towards the front to avoid any chances of tripping over people. Overall the race went okay considering my ankle issue and the fact that I just ran out of gas at about mile 3 and I think that's because I haven't been running or working out as much do to my ankle.

Here are my mile splits below from my Garmin Forerunnere 405CX:
Mile 1 - 5:52
Mile 2 - 6:13
Mile 3 - 6:21
Mile 4 - 5:55
Mile 5 - 6:18

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Shawn M. Nassaney 5K - Bryant University, Smithfield, RI

2010-11-28T07:14:00.003-05:00

Official Results: 5th OA, Time: 18:25 (5:57/mile)

It's been awhile since I've done a blog post about this race considering it was over a month ago! The good thing about this race is that it doesn't start until 12:45pm so it isn't an early morning for Jess and I to get down there. We got there about an hour before the race started so that I could meet up with my parents, grandparents and get my race number. Once we meet up with them I started to get warmed up and stretched out.

The gun was off and the race was off. Like usual a bunch of college kids sprinted across the field like idiots and then backed off. I was in 3rd or 4th place once we got around the fields and into the woods. It was then about a mile in I rolled my ankle as I lost my footing. I heard it pop as I rolled it and I quickly backed off my run to a jog to shake it out to make sure nothing was seriously wrong with it. It took some time, but I finally started running again and took the rest of the trail run very easy as I didn't want to roll the ankle again. (As a side note I had a premonition that I was going to roll my ankle during this race this year, it was so weird considering I've never ever sprained my ankle over all my years of running and doing cross country.) Once I finished up the race I grabbed some ice and iced it down while I grabbed some lunch. The ankle was definitely swollen and it looked like I had a baseball in my ankle.

After the race I took the following week off from working out all together and picked up an ankle brace from CVS. After I took the week off my ankle was still swollen, but I wasn't able to get it looked at it for another week or so. The diagnosis was that I had a Grade 2 strain, which is pretty good. I'm in my second week of PT and I've already noticed a difference with only 3 visits, which is great and as of this post I ran the Feaster Five on Thanksgiving. Stay tuned on my results from that race.

Call to Honor Triathlon: A Triathlon in Memory of Captain Rick Cashin

2010-10-24T08:10:00.000-04:00

Official Results: 2nd OA out of 180 / 1st AG M1-29; 47:06

This race is always a great race to do since it's so close to where we live so we don't have to get up that early for it. It ended up being great weather for the race, a little cool, but once the sun was out it was warm. We got there about an hour early to setup and warm up. I knew that going into this race that I would have a real good shot at winning it this year because Kevin Reen wasn't doing the race this year since he went to RI to do Firmman half.

Swim 1/4 Mile: 6th OA; 5:56 (1:28/100m)
The swim went really well for me this year even thought I was 3 seconds slower this year than last year, but that's because I haven't swam since I did Timberman. I thought I would have been much slower than this. I was in the second wave since the first wave was teams. Since the swim course was so short I ended up catching a lot of people from the first swim wave. For my swim wave I was 2nd out of the water and I was off to a good start.

Bike 10.5 Miles: 3rd OA; 29:20 (21.4mph)
I was really hoping to beat my bike time from last year, but I wasn't able to. The bike course is mostly flat with some turns and rolling hills, but its a great out and back. I know most of the course since my Saturday rides go through Boxford, but when I got out there, like last year I was worried that I would take the wrong turn and go off course so I ended up slowing at some of th turns to make sure I was going the right way. I ended up catching the guy that beat me in the swim about 3 miles into the bike and held him off until the end. I knew that once I caught him I was in 1st if I could hold of the other age groupers that were behind me since the other bikers that were ahead of me were part of teams.

Run 1.5 Miles: 2nd OA; 8:46 (5:50/mile)
Coming into T-2 I knew I was still in first, but I took me some time to get my shoes and socks on so I lost some time there. I was still able to get out in time before some other guys got out there, but it wasn't enough to hold them off since one of them had crushed me on the bike the 1.5 mile run wasn't enough time for me to get the time back. This was the only area I had improved in time this year and I was still able to take 2nd yet again, haha. Oh well!

Post-Race:
This was a well run race this year and as always the pre-race ceremony is great since the state police color guard is always there. The race director does a great job as well and I love how it's such a small race so close to home. Looks like next year I'll have to see if I can improve on my time from 2009 since I wasn't able to beat it this year.

Timberman 70.3 - 2010 Race Report

2010-09-21T19:30:00.001-04:00

Official Results: 475th OA out of 2,141 / 59th AG M25-29 out of 161

Pre-Race:
I had signed up for this race only a day or after registration opened up last year and unlike last year I wasn't going to make the mistake and wait until the race got closer to book a place to stay so right after I registered I booked a place to stay. Last year we unfortunately stayed at a B & B called the Black Swan, lets just leave it at that. This year we stayed a brand new Hampton Inn and I must say the newly renovated Hampton Inn's are amazing! Jess and I had a suite that had just about everything in it.
Since the race was on a Sunday my parents drove up to meet Jess and I at our place and then we followed each other up to the hotel. Once we all checked in and dropped everything off, it was off to check-in at Gunstock and then drove off my bike at the park. Once we did that, we then were able to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle who have a house on Lake Winnipesaukee which was only about a 30 min drive from where we dropped my bike off. It was great to meet up with them for dinner, but Jess and I didn't stay long since it was going to be an early morning. After we got back, I headed down to the hot tub to loosen up and stretch out since my adductor started acting up from doing nothing the last few days before the race, it was odd. Once I got stretched out we headed to bed around 9:45-10pm.
Jess and I were up for the race I think at 4am? This blog post is overdue that I can't remember. Anyway it was still dark out went to meet up with my parents. Once we meet up with them it was off to the park. Luckily we got there early enough that we were able to park just outside of the park where the race started and ended. Once we got there I set up my transition area and prepared for the day ahead.

Swim 1.2 Miles: 79th AG / 859th OA; 37:51 (1:58/100m)
For my age group I was in one of the 3rd or 4th to last swim waves to start so we didn't hit the water until an hour after the pro's hit the water. Going into the swim I knew that I was totally unprepared for this since I hadn't been in the water for 9 weeks! The last time I did swim, I swam 5,600 yards for the week. Needless to say I knew that I had to suffer through it and get it over with. Considering that I didn't have the training going into the swim I was just happy to finish.

Bike 56 Miles: 40th AG / 338th OA; 2:38:24 (21.2 MPH)
Once I finished the swim I was looking forward to the bike again this year since before the season started I purchased a set of Zipp 404's and I was really looking forward to trying them out over a long distance. Needless to say they were great and the first half of my bike I had averaged 22.59 MPH, but it was the way back that I only averaged 20.0 MPH. First off I tried to take less nutrition with me on the bike leg and tried to pick up more while I was out there. I took with a bottle of water and a bottle of HEED with 3 scoops mixed with water. I also had 2 gel bottles with me that held 4 servings each. Either the nutrition wasn't enough or I hadn't but in enough long rides or high intensity rides for the race that on way back to T-2 I just feel short of where I wanted to be. The last 15 or so miles of the bike my legs where just in pain. I've never had such pain from a ride, my quads were just burning. I'm okay with how I did on the bike leg, but I was hoping that I would have been able to be faster.

Run 13.1 Miles: 78th AG / 651st OA; 1:51:07 (8:29/mile)
Once I got into T2 and ditched my bike I was off on my run. As I exited T2 I saw my mom and Jess and I stopped and gave Jess a kiss. She was so caught off guard by it that she thought something was wrong, I was like nope, I just wanted a kiss, haha. Once I hit the road I was struggling, my legs were dead and my head wasn't in it anymore. I was ready to give up on this race and I wasn't even a mile in yet. I saw my dad out on the course at about the mile mark or so and I think he could tell I was struggling. I told him at some point that I just wanted to finish standing up. It really wasn't until the last 25% of the half marathon that I felt like I started to come around and was back in it mentally. Coming to the finish line, it was great, Chrissy Wellington was again handing out finishers medals, but as my mom went to take the picture, a guy walked in front of her so needless to say I don't have one to post yet again. Oh well!

Post Race:
I was glad to be done with this race once I finished. Once I was out of the finish chute I headed over to the food tent and grabbed just about everything in sit and then meet up with my parents and Jess who were waiting for me on the beach. We got to talking and I told my parents how I just wanted to quit during the run and my dad goes "How many times have you ever started a race and not finished it?" My answer was Never. I've never started a race and never finished it.
After hanging out on the beach and refueling I packed up and we headed home. A few weeks after the race and still now I don't think I'll be signing up for any Half Ironmans next year, with our wedding next year and the new job being an hour away it's just not in the cards. I'm okay with that since I've been more focused on running this year anyway.
Up next Call to Honor Triathlon, stay tuned for another well over due blog post on that race.

New 10K PR - Lone Gull 10K - Gloucester, MA

2010-09-20T06:20:00.004-04:00

Official Results: 19th OA, 14th AG M20-39, Time: 36:09 (5:49/mile) NEW PR

I had signed up for this race hoping to crush my 10k PR because the course was mostly flat and I knew that I had a good shot at doing it and that is exactly what I did! I ended up beating my old PR by 4:33!

The race didn't start till 9am, but with the race about an hour away Jess and I were up at 5:45am and we left our place at 7am so we could be there at 8am. Once we got there, I checked in and had about 30 minutes to warm up and stretch out because where registration was and where the start line was, was a bit of a walk. It was a great location to have the race since it was at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester.

I knew that going into this race I wouldn't be finishing in the top 10 so I was just hoping for a top 20 finish considering a lot of clubs run in this event it attracts a lot of fast runners. Once the gun went off the race was on and the first mile came to fast at 5:18 and I was about 10th and the lead pack was definitely under 5:00! I quickly readjusted and let off a little since I had continued at that pace I would quickly fade and not have anything left to finish. During the race my legs just felt heavy, sluggish and dead. It was a strange feeling since I haven't felt that way before. I was worried because I thought I wouldn't be able to hit the time I wanted, but once I got through the first few miles I knew that I was still on pace. I hit the 5k mark at 17:39 and felt good. A few more people were catching me, but I wasn't concerned, I wanted to race my race.

All and all it was a good race, I'm just not sure I would run it again. The race I thought wasn't very well organized unless you had done it before. There was no one there to direct you to where you needed to pick up your numbers and where the start line was, etc. I'm just thrilled that I was able to get my 10k PR and my 5K PR within a few months of each other. It's been a great year in running for me this year with all the my records falling. I'm really looking forward to concentrating more on running I think next year than triathlons. If I do any triathlons next year it might be a few sprints and olympics, no halfs or fulls since I don't have the time to train for those with my new commute to and from work being so far away.

After we got the results Jess and I decided to make an afternoon of it since we hadn't been up to Gloucester in a very long time. So we ended up driving to downtown and walked around for a bit and checked out the stores and then headed home.

Here are my mile splits from my Garmin Forerunner:
Mile 1 - 5:18
Mile 2 - 5:52
Mile 3 - 5:48
Mile 4 - 6:02
Mile 5 - 5:54
Mile 6 - 6:04
Last 2/10 Mile - 5:10

Chilmark Road Race - 5k

2010-08-23T18:59:00.002-04:00

Official Results: 3rd OA, 3rd AG M18-29, Time: 16:55.9 (5:27/mile) NEW PR

This post is long overdue. I ran this race back on Saturday August 14, 2010 while on vacation with my family on Martha's Vineyard. The race was limited to 1,500 people so I was able to sign up a few weeks before our vacation signed up. Still at 1,500 people is a large race for such a small town on the Vineyard and it showed. The race was a point to point 5k so there were buses that were running people out to the start line and there weren't enough buses for all the runners. Needless to say the race was delayed an hour and didn't start till 11am.

Even if there weren't busing issues I still had decided to run to the start line to get in more mileage for the week so I did the course as a warm up. Once I got to the start line it was a long wait waiting for the people getting bussed to the start. So I tried to stay warmed up for an hour.

The race was a little hilly when I ran to the start, so I didn't think I had a shot at running a PR. I've been hell bent on trying to get my 5k PR since it's a PR that I set back in High School. I didn't realize that I was going to get it until I saw the clock near the finish line and once I saw that I made a mad dash for the finish line. Jess got a picture of my facial expression that she had never seen before, it was pretty funny! (I'll have to post it when I scan it in.)

All and all it was a great race, for getting 3rd place overall and for my age group I got my entry fee back and more by getting a $50 dollar gift certificate to a restaurant in Menemsha and a free clam plate at another restaurant in Menemsha.

Here are mile splits from my Garmin Forerunner:
Mile 1 - 5:12
Mile 2 -5:25
Mile 3 - 5:52
Last 1/10 mile - 4:17

25th Mystic Valley Triathlon

2010-06-12T16:20:00.002-04:00

Official Results: 13th OA, 4th AG M25-29; 1:09:16

Pre-Race: This was the first time that I have ever done this race which is funny since it's only 15 minutes from where my parents live. It was great that I ended up doing it because Jess and I made a weekend out of it visiting with my parents and then walking around Mystic Village and Downtown Mystic after the race since we haven't done that in awhile, it was great!

Swim 1/2 Mile: 42nd OA, 6th AG; 10:20 (1:10/100M)
There were only 2 swim waves for this race. The first wave was all men and the second wave was all women and teams. It was great being in the first wave, but it made for a lot of bumping and swimming over people over the whole distance of the swim. The swim leg seemed much shorter than the advertised 1/2 mile, but who knows. I was surprised I was out of the water as quick as I was since I haven't really done much swimming this year.

Bike 14 miles (actually 13.88 miles): 29th OA, 4th AG; 39:03 (21.3 MPH)
The bike course was mostly downhill and flat with some rolling hills. It was a great course considering there weren't many turns and you could really get into a good rhythm. Driving the course the night before I knew I would do okay with this portion of the race. The only downside was that there was way too much drafting out there. I had some 50 year old guy sucking on my rear wheel for most of the way and then he passed me at the end along with like 6 other guys that were right behind him. I was furious after that and knew for a fact that I would catch them on the run anyway.

Run 3 Miles: 3rd OA, 2nd AG; 17:11 (5:43/Mile)
I've never felt so good coming out of T2 till this race. I felt like my legs just clicked and I was on my way. I ended up catching a lot more guys on the run that I had expected. The run has always been my strong suit and I've definitely been able to put in a lot more miles this year than last year. The run course was very flat with one hill that you hit twice since it was an out and back course.

Post Race:
Even though I was hoping to finish higher up in my age group, it was still a great race. When I signed up for the race and looked at the results from the last year I figured I would be happy with a top 20 finish and I did that. It was a well organized race and the volunteers were all very helpful. It was great to that my parents didn't have to drive to far for this race since they are the ones that usually have the longest drives for my races. All and all it was a great weekend with the parents and spending time with Jess walking around Mystic.

JCC Triathlon by the Sea - May 16, 2010

2010-06-06T19:15:00.003-04:00

Official Results: 6th OA, 1st AG M25-29, 56:39

This blog post is well over due, but I did the JCC Triathlon by Sea back on May 16th, 2010. I did well despite my overall mileage to date. It was a great race to kick off the season and it was great to see Kevin Reen, Dean Phillips, Vinny & Marty Miserandino after the off season. I spent much of my time after race catching up with them which was great. Like in years past my family came up for the day and then we went to lunch with my family and Jess's family.

Swim: 1/8 Mile
Time: 3:50

Bike: 10 Miles
Time: 31:30
Avg - 20.0 MPH

Run: 3.5 miles
Time: 21:20
Pace: 6:06 / mile

Margaritas 5K - Exeter, NH

2010-05-03T06:36:00.003-04:00

Official Results: 2nd OA, 1st AG M20-29, Time: 17:03 (5:29 per mile pace)

After running a PR at the 5 mile distance a few weeks ago I was curious to see how fast I could run a 5k. I was hoping to break 17:00, but I was 3 seconds over. It wasn't until I got home and called my parents and had them check to see what my PR was for the 5k since I couldn't remember the last time I had run one. My PR from high school which is probably the fastest 5k I've ever run was my sophomore year and was a 16:58. I'm hoping to break this PR soon!

I ended up going to this race by myself yesterday since Jess was so tired. I was up at 7am and out of the house by 8am. Even though the race wasn't until 10am I still had to preregister, stretch and drive 40 minutes to the race. Based on last years results I was hoping it maybe win it, but after getting there I noticed there were a few good guys that showed up for the race. I saw the guy that won the race warming up and had a feeling he might win it. Sure enough I was right. After talking to him after the race, he had just run the Boston Marathon and finished in 2:30 and had raced a 5k yesterday...this guy was in awesome shape! I started out in 2nd place and finished in 2nd place for this race. After looking over the data from the race, I ran at 98% Max HR and for the last few minutes I hit 100 to 101%...no wonder why I felt like I was going throw up the last 1/1oth of a mile! Hopefully I can break my 5k PR soon! I'd like to break my 5k, 10k and 10 mile PR's this year as well!

Up next the JCC Sprint Triathlon May 16.

96th Lexington Lions Patriots Day 5 Miler

2010-04-24T13:45:00.003-04:00

Official Results: 7th OA, 5th AG M20-29 Time: 27:51 (5:34 per mile pace) new PR

This past Monday, which for those of you who don't live in Massachusetts was Patriots Day so I was off from work and I ran my first race of the season. It felt great to get out there again and test my race legs. I live for the competitiveness of racing and the strategy during the race. I picked this race because it was featured on coolrunnings.com as one of the to do races and because it is one of the longest lasting road races in the US, which is pretty cool! Going into the race I was just hoping to have fun with it and run around a 6 min per mile pace. I sure did surprise myself considering my first mile was a 5:23, but I slowed down a little after that. I was in 7th position for the whole race up until there was under a mile and half left I poured it on and was able to catch the 2 guys in front of me. The only problem was that I was going by the distance on my new Garmin Forerunner and it said there was still .08 miles left until the finish line so I didn't start to sprint so when I turned the final corner to find the finish line was right there the 2 guys caught me since they had started sprinting sooner that I had. Had I known about the course I probably would have finished 5th, but this race was for fun right! Overall I was psyched that I was able to run so fast this early in the season and I'm looking forward to the JCC Sprint Triathlon coming up this month.

A New Job!

2010-01-30T10:15:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that I will officially be employed as of February 1st! After being unemployed for about a month and half I will be starting my new job at Consigli Construction in Milford, MA. I'm very excited to see what new opportunities await me there. I will be performing the same work that I was doing at my old company, which was Estimating. It's great knowing that I have a job now because for awhile there I was wondering how long I would collecting unemployment and if the economy was going to get any better. It was also hard to get motivated for training not knowing if I was going to get a job. Now that I know I have job it's time to put together a training plan for this year, stay tuned!

2009 Year in Review & What have I been up too?

2010-01-05T08:17:00.006-05:00

Looking back on 2009, I'm so glad it's over! I'm not sure if I just lacked the motivation to get back into some hardcore training after coming off the Ironman in November of the following year, but I just couldn't put 100% into it last year. I found biking to be more enjoyable last year and that was probably why I had the best I times to date last year with my best race being Timberman where I averaged 22.0 mph, which was great! I unfortunately didn't have the running miles to put together a great half marathon time, which hurt me in the end. Needless to say I didn't meet my goals for 2009, which were to qualify for the Boston Marathon and make it to the 70.3 Championship race in Florida, so I will again make these my goals for 2010.

Here were my total miles for 2009 for each discipline:

Swim: 112,805 yards (64 miles)

Bike: 1,213.88 miles

Run: 322.43 miles

What have I been up too?
It's been awhile since I've posted so I just want to start off saying that I hope everyone had a great holiday and a Happy New Year! I was unfortunately laid off on December 11 and have been trying to find a job ever since. I've had some promising interviews over the last few weeks, so we'll see what happens. Since being laid off I've started training a little bit more, which has been great! I've even been doing double workouts every day. In the mornings I've been going to the gym to lift and then in the afternoons I've been doing bike trainer sessions. Hopefully I'll be employed again and can set my sites on some races to focus on for the 2010 season. As of right now I've only signed up for Timberman 70.3 and I'm holding off on signing up for any other races until I know I have a job again.

2009 Feaster Five

2009-11-26T13:34:00.002-05:00

Here is a quick post of the results from this mornings race in Andover, MA

Time: 28:48
Pace: 5:48 / mile
18th Overall out of 2,734
9th Age Group M20-29 out of 228

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!

A Call to Honor: A Triathlon in Memory of Rick Cashin

2009-09-14T20:00:00.004-04:00

Official Results: 2nd OA, 1st AG M30 and under; 46:32

Pre-Race
The night before this race I only had 4 hours of sleep since Jess and I were at a wedding the night before. Despite the few hours of sleep I actually didn't feel tired that morning and the good thing about this race was that it was only a 10 minute drive to the start because the race was in Boxford at Stiles Pond, which is the next town over from where we live. Also, Stiles Pond is where my triathlon group, Tri-Fury does most of there open water training sessions and where I usually do my open water swims, but this year I've only made it out there twice.

Swim 1/4 Mile: 5th OA; 5:53 (1:27/100m)
I was in the first swim wave for this race along with everyone under the age of 30 and all the relays. With the race being small enough it wasn't a crowded swim start which was nice so I started out at the front. The swim was a rectangular clockwise swim. I got out to the first buoy faster than I thought and felt great and I was in 3rd or 4th heading to the 2nd buoy. I had predicted to finish the swim in about 6:30 because that was about the pace I was swimming this year, but I ended up being faster than I though.

Bike 10.5 Miles: 2nd OA; 31:39 (28:53 - 21.8 MPH)
My official time was 31:39, but this includes my T-1 and T-2 times so this is why the 31:39 seems slower than I actually was. I was excited to get to the bike leg of the race since I've really enjoyed this portion of racing this year. After exiting T-1, my heart rate was through the roof and didn't settle down until the end of the bike ride. The bike route was part of the Tri-Fury group ride that I do on Saturdays so it was very familiar to me, which was great! I was hoping to average around 22 MPH, but didn't hit that and I think that was because of the lack of sleep.

Run 1.5 miles: 1st OA; 9:01 (6:00/mile)
Coming into T-2 I saw my competition from the 2nd wave right behind me, Kevin Reen. I raced against Kevin at the JCC this year and I knew that he might catch me on the bike, but I just didn't know where. As I exited T-2 I was right behind him the whole way to the finish, but I knew since he had caught me that he had made up the 2 minute gap on me. The run leg was pretty cool since it was an out and back on an unpaved, but graded road. It was nice running on that instead of a paved road.

Post-Race:
Overall it was a well run race by the volunteers, the town of Boxford, the State Police (who Capt. Rick Cashin had worked for), and the Boxford Police. It was also a great end of the season race for me and it was awesome that is was so close to home for once.

Timberman 70.3 - 2009 Race Report

2009-09-07T13:30:00.000-04:00

Official Results: 144th OA out of 1808 / 19th M25-29 out of 110; 5:01:19

Swim 1.2 Miles: 433rd OA; 33:50 (1:45/100m)
This was my worst swim ever! I think part of the reason why my swim times haven't been that great this year because I stopped lifting all together this season, unlike last season where I actually did a full body workout once a week. I also keep having the problem that when I get about 10 minutes into the swim I start hacking up flem and have to stop swimming at least 2-3 times to get rid of it. It's very strange since I've never had this problem before while swimming. The swim leg of the race other than what I mentioned above was pretty uneventful.

Bike 56 Miles: 114th OA; 2:32:35 (22.0 MPH)
After coming out of the water and into T1 I knew I had some ground to gain with an awful swim time. My bike times have definitely improved this season, which I've been pretty excited about and I've only done 1 ride over 50 miles this season and that was before Amica 70.3 RI. I have been doing more shorter rides during the week at a higher intensity, so I think that this has helped me get a little faster. Once I was out of T1 and heading out on the course, I realized that the climb out to the flatter part of the course was a little more challenging that I had thought after driving the course the day before the race. The climb from the Lake was brutal at some points where I was only going like 8-9 mph up the hills. Once I got to the flatter part of the course to where the turn around was I got into a good cadence and was able to go 22 - 25 mph. It was slightly downhill to the turn around, which was great. Once I hit the turn around I still felt great was able to maintain about 21 mph. There was one last hill left towards the end but it was nothing after the climb up from the lake. The downhills back to the Lake were very fast and I ended up hitting 47.5 mph on one of the downhills, which is the fastest I have ever gone on my bike! I think I had a pretty good nutrition plan on the bike portion of this race and ended up taking 1 accelerade bottle, 1 small Monster/Gatorade mix and 1 water bottle and a gel squeeze bottle that holds 4 gel servings and straps to the tube of the bike, so it makes it convenient to get at while your riding. I should have taken in some salt tablets because once I hit the run I struggled the first 2 miles.

Run 13.1 Miles: 204th OA; 1:49:09 (8:20/mile)
Coming into T2 for some unexplained reason I had a mental breakdown once I got back to my bike rack and was almost ready to quite. I think that was because I felt so unprepared for the upcoming run, but once I got out of T2 and headed out on the run course my mental state quickly improved and I felt fine even though I struggled the first 2 miles because my quads cramped up so bad that it was affecting my form. I walked into the first aid station, took in some water and 4 Endurolyte tablets and after that I was good for the rest of the run, but it took about 4-5 miles for them to finally get into my system for the cramping to stop. I would have liked to have had a faster run, but my running mileage is severely lacking this year. I've found biking much more enjoyable this year then running and I think this is because my hamstrings have been so tight that running has been on the painful side, but if I bike I can bike at a high intensity and not feel any pain at all. The course was a good course, it was a 2 loop out and back course and it was awesome having a huge TriFury cheering crowd out there cheering us on and taking pictures as we passed them.

Post-Race:
After crossing the finish line I thought I was still under the 5 hour mark, but then when the official results were posted I was 1 minute over, but that was close to what I had predicted for my finish time. The greatest part of the race was getting my finishers medal from Chrissie Wellington! In my opinion she showed some great sportsmanship by doing that. After she won the women's race she came back to the finish line to personally hand out finishers medals, it was the coolest thing ever! I just wish I had a picture of it!

Other Notes:
On another note this was an awesome race because I got to meet up with Jason Widstrom with whom I ran with back in high school when he was a senior and I was freshman. I think that was the last time I saw him and he still looked the same. It was great getting a chance to race with/against him. I was secretly hoping to beat him and I did, sorry Jason I had to put it on here! I knew if I didn't beat you that I would get a ton of crap from Scott DeWire! I'm just hoping that the three of us can do a race together next year and all meet up. All and all it was good race, I still wasn't able to get that Clearwater slot, but looking back on this season, it just wasn't meant to be. I feel like my heart just wasn't in it like it was last year and at times I lacked some of the motivation that I had last year. I'm hoping I can take the lessons learned from this season and use them next season. I'm just happy that the season is over. I'm signed up for the Bay State Marathon in October, but with 5-6 weeks to get ready for a marathon with not much running mileage, I think I'm going to scrap this idea and possibly do a spring marathon.

Ironman 70.3 RI - 2009 Race Report

2009-07-13T22:00:00.001-04:00

Official Results: 180th OA out of 1,306 / 25th M-25-29 out of 130; 4:50:01

Pre-Race:

Race week worked out good and bad for both reasons. I was on vacation all of last week out on Martha's Vineyard with my family and Jess. It was the perfect week to taper before the race and being on vacation was a good excuse not to do much exercise wise. The worst part of this was that coming back from vacation was on Saturday, the day before the race. Saturday started out coming back on a ferry from the Vineyard at 8:30am and then driving from the Cape to Providence, RI, which was about an hour. After picking up all my race stuff we then headed over to drop off my run gear bag because that was required to be dropped off on Saturday. We then headed to Roger Wheeler State Park Beach to drop off my bike. After doing that we then drove the bike course back to Providence. Needless to say after all then we then had to drive to my parents place with a little side trip to Foxwoods because Jess wasn't feeling well and didn't want to be out all day at the race on Sunday she had her dad pick her up. I didn't get to bed until 8:30pm or so. I was exhausted and I slept very lightly Saturday night and then woke up at 2:30am on Sunday morning to get ready for the race. The drive from my parents place to Narragansett for the swim start was just over an hour drive. We left my parents house at 3:45am and got to the swim start around 5:00am. After getting there I then dropped off my bike gear bag and left my helmet on my bike. The swim wave starts was suppose to start at 6:00am for the pros and then 6:02am for the pro women, but because it was so windy on race morning the swim buoys had blown out of place and had to be reset and the race start was postponed 15 minutes. I was in the 13th swim wave and didn't get in the water until an hour after the pro start.

Swim: 1.2 miles: 319th OA, 52nd AG; 31:19 (1:38/100m)

The swim start was off of Narragansett beach and I've swam pretty close to this swim start before at Firmman Half last year and I knew what kind of conditions I was in for. The only difference from Firmman was that we saw out and back instead of parallel to the beach. The race conditions down at the beach were really windy. The flag was straight out and waves before the pro start were white caps but then the wind died down a very little bit before my swim wave went off. This swim time was not what I was looking for. I hoping to be around or under 30 minutes, but that didn't happen. I must have sucked in ocean water about 2-3 times heading out. Heading out into the waves was the worst. When the waves came in and you were swimming into them I was coming out the backside of the wave and slapping down between the next wave, very unpleasant. I felt like I never got comfortable during this swim. My dad said that he saw 5 people throw-up after coming out of the water from taking in to much water from the swim.

T-1: 3:25

This transition took more time than it should have only because when I got to my bike I had noticed that it had been knocked over from another racer...needless to say my bag was on the ground and then my helmet that was on my bike was placed on my bike, but I then had to mess with the straps to get it on since it had been knocked on the ground.

Bike 56 miles: 169th OA, 24th AG; 2:33:24 (21.9 MPH)

This is by far my fastest bike split at the half iron distance. The first 25 miles of this race was flat and fast along the shore of RI. Those first 25 miles I looked down at my bike computer to see that I was averaging 23.3 mph, but I knew that would soon come down because of the hills I knew that were in store on this course. There were about 4 good size hills on the course with the last big hill being at about mile 50, which I ended up going about 8 mph up...The down hills more than made up for it though. I hit 41 mph on one of the downhills while on the others I was going 38-39 mph. The good thing about being in the 2nd to last swim wave was that I was catching people all day and that made for an awesome incentive on the bike. I felt very strong and focused on this portion of the race, the only thing I regret is not taking in enough nutrition for the run. The bike course itself was very well marked and there were a ton of volunteers and police out there, which was awesome. The only part that sucked was that about 2-3 miles left to go on the bike when I was going over the train tracks my bike computer came loose on my chain stay and hit my rear wheel and went flying off the the bike. My brand new Cateye V3 was gone....I didn't know what the nose was until I looked down and saw that I was getting anymore feed back on the computer.

Run 13.1 miles: 198 OA, 25th AG; 1:40:02 (7:39)

I made my way out of T-2 in good time. The thing about the Ironman sanctioned races is that you have to wear your run bib number while you ride so it was one less thing to worry about when I hit the run. I headed out for the run and I felt like I couldn't get my legs going at all to where I wanted to run and then the first hill came and there is no way to explain how steep this hill was and I had to run up and down it twice. It was a grueling hill, but I refused to walk it. It was more of a shuffle up the hill instead of a run up the hill. Like I said earlier, I don't think I took in enough nutrition in on the bike for run because I hit up the 2nd aid station around mile 2 or 3 and then hit them all for the rest of the race. I ended up walking about 4-5 times during the race, but it was mostly at the aid stations. I just don't have the run mileage yet to run a good half marathon after biking 56 miles yet. After this race I only have 158 miles to date of running, which is no where near where I was when I did my first half of the season last year. The most surprising thing to me was that I dropped 20 spots overall on the run. The run leg is usually my strongest leg and where I pick up a lot of spots, but not with this race.

Post-Race:

Unfortunately, I didn't grab any of the Clearwater spots (3 in my age group) or the Kona slots (2 in my age group). All and all it was a great race and I can't wait for Timberman next month. For now I'm taking this week off to recover and then next week its back to some hard training in preparation for Timberman. Many thanks to my dad for driving my car from Narragansett to Providence and then driving me back to CT. My Aunt Joyce was also able to make it as well, which was great since my dad was the only one from the family that was healthy to make it.

JP Morgan Corporate Challege - 3.5 Mile Run

2009-06-29T18:50:00.005-04:00

Results: 19:09 (5:28/mile) - There are no official results for placing for this race unfortuately, but my best guess is that I was in the top 20-30.

The last time I ran this race was 3 years ago in 2006 and my time was 19:59 (5:42/mile), so I was hoping to best this time. I was surprised to see the clock under 19 minutes coming down the straight away to the finish. If I had any energy left for a sprint I probably could have gone under 19 minutes.

This years race was awesome since we had such a huge Berry contingent there. I think we had about 30 people who ran it this year compared to about 15 that ran it back in 2006. The post race festivites took place at Solas Irish Pub in Boston near the Boston Marathon Finish Line and I didn't end up getting to bed until a little after midnight by the time I got home.

Ashland Lions Triathlon - 2009 Race Report

2009-06-28T08:41:00.004-04:00

OFFICIAL RESULTS: 19th OA out of 190, 2nd M25-29 out of 15; 2:24:40

The weather on race day was an absolute washout! Thankfully before the race while I was setting up my transition area it wasn't raining, but I knew what was in store so I left a trash bag over my run and bike gear. Not long after I had finished setting up, it started to pour. Luckily there was a huge party tent that was setup nearby and I was able to stretch out under there until the start of the race. My parents got a little lost on there way and ended up meeting me here.

Swim 1 Mile: 30th OA, 4th AG; 23:11 (1:26/100 m)

The hike down to the swim start must have been at least been a 1/4 of a mile or a little more down a steep woods trail. Needless to say it was a good thing I wore a junky pair of old running shoes for the swim exit so that I can run up to T1. My age group at this race was in the 2nd swim wave which was awesome. There is something about being in the first swim wave and being caught that I hate. I love being out on the course and catching people when I start in the 2nd swim wave.

Bike 26 Miles: 29th OA, 2nd AG; 1:12:49 (21.42 MPH)

This bike course was very hilly, but the down hills made this course fast. On the uphills I must have only been going 9 mph but on one of the downhills I hit 39mph! It was a 2 loop course that went around the Ashland Reservoir and went over the Boston Marathon start, which was really cool since I've never been out to the start of the Boston Marathon. The bike leg went well and it was great to learn that I picked up a spot in my age group and in the overall standings.

Run 6.5 Miles: 10th OA, 2nd AG, 40:41 (6:15/mile)

This run course was a little hilly like bike course so I'm pretty happy with my time considering.

Race Recap:

Overall this was a great race and it was great that parents were able to make it to watch me race. It unfortunately was the 2nd race that Jess wasn't able to make because she has been busy attending 2 of her friend bridal showers for their weddings that are this summer. I hope this race is good indicator that I'll be ready for 70.3 RI.

Ludlow Boys & Girls Club Triathlon - 2009 Race Report

2009-05-31T15:45:00.001-04:00

OFFICIAL RESULTS: 28th OA out of 278, 6th M25-29 out of 20; 1:16:07
I was on the fence with this race this year, but in the end I ended up doing it. I wanted to do the race so I could compare my time from 2 years ago when I first did this race, which was my first ever race in triathlon. On the other hand I didn't want to do the race because I have much bigger goals to worry about, like training for Amica RI 70.3, which is literally right around the corner. So instead of not doing the race at all I treated the day before the race as a regular training day and decided to go for a 43 mile bike ride. The ride went great and my legs felt very fresh on the 43 mile ride. I ended up averaging 20.7 mph on that ride. So with this long ride before the Ludlow Sprint I didn't have high expectations about finishing high up in my age group and I had predicted that I would finish in an about 1:20 and 5th in my age group.

Swim 1/2 Mile: 41st OA, 5th AG; 11:26 (2006 - 13:54)
This was my first open water swim of the season! Needless to say the swim went well anyway and I settled in comfortably and drafted someone the whole way out and back across Haviland Pond.

T-1: 2:26
I was happy with my swim time and when I got to transition I took my time in getting on my bike gear, which explains the amount of time I was in T-1!

Bike 13.58 Miles (actually 13.06): 67th OA, 10th AG; 36:58 (22.04 MPH) (2006 - 42:30, 19.17 MPH)
I was not looking forward to this portion of the race because of my long ride the day before, but I was still surprised to learn after the race that I still averaged 22 mph, which is great considering! The first 5 miles of this leg I could feel all the muscles I used the day before and it took some time for them to warm up and get use to biking again today. After those first 5 miles I was fine even though I knew there was nothing in the tank for this short 14 mile ride. It made me wonder what was going to be left for the run...

T-2: 1:54
This was pretty uneventful, but again took my time to get my running socks on only because last time I ran without socks was at the JCC race and I ended up with small blisters on my heels, but I think that was due to the rain conditions.

Run 4.02 miles: 5th OA, 2nd AG; 23:21 (5:48/mile) (2006 - 28:41 - 7:08/mile)
After the bike leg I had I was surprised that my legs actually felt great once I started running. I felt a little sluggish at first, but then it went away. I had no idea what I was going to pull off for a time here so I was shocked when I got home to find out I broke the 6 min per mile pace.

Summary: All and all it was a great race and I was happy with how well I did. I wish I had finished a little higher up in my age group, but that's okay, I'll take it. This past week was a great week for workouts and this performance really topped things off. I'll have another training report update in the next few days about my training volume over the last few weeks.

On another note my 2006 time was 1:25:06 and I finished 8th in my AG and 67th OA. I've come a long way since that considering I beat my time from 2 years ago by almost 10 minutes!

JCC Triathlon by the Sea - 2009 Race Report

2009-05-17T18:26:00.001-04:00

OFFICIAL RESULTS: 5th OA out of 230, 1st M25-29 out of 6; 56:34

This was my first official race of the season and it was a great motivator to get me back into my groove and hopefully back to enjoying the training for my other races this season. I wasn't quite sure what to expect on how I would perform at this race this year since last year I was in much better shape considering I was training for a half in June. The race this year was back to the original course because last year construction work changed the course and made it a 10.5 mile bike and a 3 mile run. This year it was a 10 mile bike and 3.5 mile run.

The weather on race day was very rainy and 60 degrees. The good thing was that it was humid so it actually felt pretty warm and I was able to get away with no bike socks, arm warmers and leg warmers, which was a plus since they are pain to put on when you are soaking wet and its raining.

Swim 1/8 Mile: 4th OA, 1st AG; 3:39 (Last year 3:45)

The swim start is based on a seed time that you give the race director when you register since its a pool swim. So after the first person goes there is a 10-15 second gap between every swimmer in hopes that you don't catch the person in front of you. The good thing was that this year I was far enough up in the line, number 9 this year, compared to last year where I was 66 people deep. The only person I caught this year was the girl in front of me and it didn't cost me any time. I knew I would improve on my swim time this year since I was further up, but I also feel like I've been concentrating more on this. My actual swim time was 3:26 when I exited the pool, but by the time you reach the timing mat, it adds this time to your swim split, which is still a 12 second improvement over last years swim exit time, which is great over a short distance.

Bike 10 Miles: 19th OA, 1st AG, 31:38 (19.0 MPH) (Last year 20.2 mph)

I knew that going into the bike leg this year that there was no way I would be able to match or beat my average speed from last year, which was 20.2 mph. I just don't have the base mileage that I had this time last year. My longest ride to date is only 34 miles! I had predicted going into the race that I would be in around 31 minutes considering everything, but 38 seconds over isn't to bad considering the weather conditions. The bike course this year was awesome! The roads were well paved with little to no pot holes at all. The only bad thing was that you had to do 3 loops once you got out there and the turn to make the loop was very sharp so you had to slow down to make the turn so that I didn't whip out taking the corner. Overall this is and has continued to be my weakest link in triathlon and where I've been getting beat at the races. It looks like its time to get more time in the saddle and hammer out some miles!

Run 3.5 miles: 1st OA, 1st AG; 21:18 (6:05/mile) (Last year 5:33/mile)

This year the run was a half mile longer and I knew that I didn't have the speed work to pull of a 5:33 pace like I did last year. That was just a crazy fast time I pulled off last year. In fact my base running mileage is way off the mark for this time of year due to my injuries, hip tightness and hamstring issues. By the time I got to the run I was about 2-3 minutes behind the leader and knew I wouldn't be able to catch them, but I knew that I could at least try. Come to find out I still had the fastest time of the day and was able to gain a a minute on the winnder. I was all alone out there on the run course until about the 3 mile mark and I could see the 2nd finisher ahead of me in the distance, but with such a little distance to the finish and such a big gap I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch him.

Summary:

All and all I can't complain about how I finished in this race this year considering where I'm at training wise. Would I have liked to have done better, most definitely, but between my injuries and lack of motivation to train it has held me back from my true potential. My next race is in 2 weeks out at Ludlow, which I'm pretty excited about since Ludlow was where I did my first triathlon. I figured I'd do this race this year to see how far I've come since my first race ever in the sport.

Post Race:

I want to thank my parents and Jess for coming out to cheer me on today despite the very inclimate weather. That was great! After the race and awards we kept with tradition and went out to Brunch / Lunch with Jess's family where I absolutely pigged out on 6 pieces of french toast, 2 egg whites and 3 pieces of bacon!

Training Update

2009-05-14T19:43:00.003-04:00

Okay so I haven't been as good keeping up with my blog this year as I had been last year. But the good news is that I've finally got my motivation back. Last week was finally a good week of training for me with the only exception being that I wasn't able to get in my long bike or run because I had to work both Saturday and Sunday. I've got the JCC Sprint Triathlon coming up this weekend and I'm hoping that this race will be a big motivator for me as well and help me get back on track for Amica 70.3 RI, which is in about 8 weeks. Here is my training volume for the last few weeks below.

Week 8:

Swim - 4,928 yards
Bike - 19.52
Run - 10.28

Week 9:

Swim - 6,106 yards
Bike - 34.12
Run - 5.39

Week 10 (Car Accident Week - suffered a mild concussion & sore lower back)

Swim - 704 yards
Bike - 0 miles
Run - 3.01

Week 11:

Swim - 6,336 yards
Bike - 34.3 miles
Run - 7.1 miles

Race Schedule Changes & Update on Training

2009-04-14T18:11:00.003-04:00

As you may or may have not noticed I've changed my race schedule a bit. I was suppose to run Doyle's 5 Miler a few weekends ago, but decided not to do it since I need to establish a better base before I can start racing. I've also taken the Wrentham Duathlon off the race schedule since Jess and I are taking a trip to Washington, DC for the weekend, which will be something to look forward too since the both of us have never been.

Update on Training:
About 2 weeks ago my right adductor acted up so I had to take some time off. I did a speed workout session to early and woke up the next morning in pain. Since I've dealt with this type of injury before I ended up stretching it out 3 times a day over the course of the last week, iced it after any workouts I did and took Mortin within the first 24-48 hours. Sure enough after taking 2 days off I was back to good and I've returned to my normal training again, but I'm being cautious to what I do and how hard I go since my hamstrings are still very sore. I'm still finding that after running 5 miles my legs in general feel like I've run a lot farther.

Here are my totals for the past 2 weeks:

Week 5:

Swim - 5,500 yards
Bike - 163 minutes (40 min trainer ride & 25.54 mile outdoor ride)
Run - 5.65 miles

Week 6 (Injury Flared Up):

Swim - 3,256 yards
Bike - 33.86 miles & 1 Trainer Ride
Run - 4.03 miles

Week 7:

Swim - 5,852 yards
Bike - 23.74 miles
Run - 6.06 miles

What Have I Been Up, You May Ask?

2009-03-23T19:45:00.001-04:00

I haven't completely forgotten about my blog, but I just haven't had anything to really write about. Let me get you up to speed to where I am today. I'm finally done with Physical Therapy! Many thanks go out to Michelle Higgins and Calvin Marshall at Excel Orthopedics for helping me get back to my somewhat normal training regimen. My last PT appointment was 1 day before my birthday and at this time last year I was at Excel Orthopedics getting PT for my IT band. I'm almost a regular at this place!

Where am I today? Well, as of right now I'm entering my 5th week of training and to tell you the truth my training volume has still been pretty low. I've hit my swim distances, but have yet to hit my run and bike distances and times. On top of the training I've had to do yoga 2-3 times a week because my hamstrings are very tight and make it painful to run about 90% of the time. I'm hoping I get this problem ironed out in the next few weeks so I can amp up my running and biking.

Here are my totals for the last few weeks below:

Week 1:

Swim - 4,180 yards
Bike - 30 min
Run - 3.25 miles

Week 2:

Swim - 5,016 yards
Bike - 0
Run - 12.75 miles

Week 3:

Swim - 4,928 yards
Bike - 0
Run - 7.8 miles

Week 4:

Swim - 4,328 yards
Bike - 90 min
Run - 6.11 miles

Injury Status & Update

2009-02-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I've last posted and it's mostly due to the fact that I've been injured and trying to slowly get back to some sort of training. While being injured with a strained left adductor muscle I ended up with another injury, my illiopsoas muscle, which is a very small muscle than runs between the bottom of the abdominal wall and the hip flexor. It's basically a stabilizer muscle for the hip flexor and groin muscle. So needless to say I was just about ready to be done with PT and then I ended up with this injury. I still have about 4 appointments left for PT and I think I'm almost there. On top of the 1 PT appointment a week, I've been doing 2-3 yoga classes a week. This past week I tried Bikram Yoga, which is a hot yoga. The first class was a little tough to get use to since the room is 109 degrees, but the second class I was able to make it through the whole way without having to lay down or stop. I've found that this hot yoga absolutely drains me and the next day I find that I feel like I did a triathlon the day before.

On a good note, this week I was able to run once and swim twice even though it was only about 1,500 yards, but I guess that's better than nothing. Based on where I'm at now with my training, I'm not going to do the Great Bay Half Marathon, which is pretty unfortunate because this was a great race for me last year and I wanted to compare it against last years time and was hoping to improve my time. My current training plan has me starting my half iron training the week of Feb. 22nd, but that is still TBD depending on how my injury feels.

Update & Goals for 2009

2008-12-14T16:54:00.004-05:00

It's been awhile since I've last posted, but I thought I'd just give everyone a quick update and list my goals for the upcoming 2009 Race Season. I can't believe Christmas is right around the corner and the New Year is quickly approaching. Since B2B I have absolutely done no training whatsoever. I have to say it's finally started to bother me about 2 weeks ago. I tried to jump back into light training 2 weeks after B2B, but ended up with a strained left adductor muscle, which has sidelined any training that I was hoping to do. I should be good to go in the next few weeks to start running again though, which is good to report. Since I haven't been able to train I have at least started weight training so I could at least keep the holiday weight gain off. Besides the weight training I have also been doing yoga up to two times a week and regularly stretching out for about 20-30 minutes about once or twice day. One of my biggest limiters last year was not being loose and lead to a few annoying injuries such as my tight IT band rubbing on my knee at the beginning of the year and then my Achilles Tendinitis from having tight hamstrings. I'm hoping that I can continue to do yoga during the 2009 season and I'm happy to report that I can already feel the results from doing yoga.

As you may or may not have noticed I have listed my tentative race schedule on the right side of my blog page. Here are a few goals I have for the 2009 Race Season below.

Main Goal - Qualify for the Foster Grant 70.3 World Championships
(Clearwater, FL) Nov. 14, 2009
After having done 2 halfs and a full last year I decided to concentrate on the 70.3 distance in hopes of qualifying for the 70.3 Championship race. Hence why I have signed up for (2) qualifying half races, which are the Amica Ironman 70.3 RI (July 12, 2009) and Timberman (August 23, 2009).

Secondary Goal - Qualify for the Boston Marathon for 2010.
I would have liked to have done an early season marathon in 2009, but I don't think it will be in the cards for me. I hate training outside in the cold weather and there was no way I would make myself suffer in the cold to try and train for a February or March marathon. Instead, I'm hoping that I can do an end of the season marathon to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2010. For those of you that don't know, I'm superstitious about odd and even numbers. (I like even race numbers.) Hence, why I'd like to run a Boston qualifier in 2009 and then run Boston in an even year. For whatever reason, I'd like to think that if I have an even number I'll have a better race. Case and point, B2B where I had the most unlucky number 313! We all know what happened there.

These are my goals for now and I'm starting to get psyched about getting back into a normal training regimen again by the middle of January.

2008 Season Recap

2008-11-17T20:00:00.001-05:00

I wanted to take some time and reflect on my 2008 triathlon season.

My main goal for this year was to finish 2 Half Iron races and 1 Full Distance race.
Let me tell you that this goal sounded absolutely crazy at the beginning of 2008, especially since last year I had only done 2 Sprint Distance triathlons. I was so hooked on the sport of triathlon after last year that I really had to step it up a notch in 2008. So when I started thinking about the races I wanted to do, which was in November / December of 2008, I had definitely decided that I wanted to do 2 Half's and then shoot for a Full in 2009. That goal quickly changed once I spoke with Scott DeWire and he told me about Beach 2 Battleship in Wilmington, NC and that if I was going to do 2 Half's, why not just do a Full in the same year since training for a Full is just a little more volume. Trust me, it didn't take much convincing on his part! I think I thought about it and made a final decision in a day or two. I was scared, nervous, excited and overwhelmed at what training lie ahead all at the same time after I signed up for that race.

Now if you know anything about setting goals, you have to set small goals to achieve the main goal you are after. With that said, my small goals were to use the sprint triathlons as training races and improve my times at races and/or distances that I had done the previous year. The first real race of the year was the Great Bay Half on April 6th and the purpose of this race was to see where my training stood at that point, since I started training for my First Half Iron on January 20th. This race was a great first goal or milestone for me to reach in my training since I was able to PR my Half Marathon time by 6 minutes! After such a great PR for this race, I was really excited to see how I would make out at Mooseman, my first half iron race. After the Great Bay Half I used the JCC Sprint as another measuring stick for how I would make out at the Spring distance this year and yet again I surprised myself with good results by placing 3rd overall and 1st in my Age Group. With these small goals and sticks of measurement met and Mooseman less than a month away I was ready. As you may or may not have known, the goal at Mooseman was to A) Finish and B) try and finish under 5 hours. Even though I was very close to making my B goal, the weather didnt quite cooperate that day so I was very happy with how I performed, but also knew that I could have had a much better race in more ideal race conditions.

With the 1st goal met, it was time to switch training plans and start the Iron Distance training plan, which I thought was going to a very daunting task. B2B training started about 2 weeks after Mooseman and it wasn't long before I had my next race, The Powow Triathlon. This race was the 2nd time I had done this one and was the last race of the year last year. I was excited for this race because I knew that with all the base I had I could really improve my time this year from last year. I ended up improving by 4 minutes, which was great and I moved up in the standings and once again won my age group. After doing well at Powow I had some fill in races to keep my race fitness up and then I had the Firm Man Half, which I had scheduled in as part of my B2B training plan as another goal and measuring stick of performance. Firm Man ended up being an awesome race! Not only was this a huge PR for me, but it was the most comfortable I've ever felt racing. There were many factors that had helped me in my favor, the race was postponed a week because of a hurricane so I had to take a 2 week taper in lieu of a 1 week taper. Also, the weather was perfect and the course was flat. After a such an awesome performance at Firm Man I was even more pumped for the upcoming B2B race. Firm Man ended up having a few goals as well A) try and break Scott DeWire's PR at the 70.3 distance, sorry Scott, and B) Win my age Group and guess what, I did both.

With my 2nd season goal meet, it was time for B2B. The training that lead up to this was by no means easy, but would I do it again, most certainly!! I can honestly say there is nothing more exciting and thrilling than finishing an Iron distance race. B2B training consisted of some very long and mentally tough rides and swims. There were times when I wondered why the hell I was doing this in the first place. There were also the times I didn't even want to train or talk about triathlon. In fact, I think I ended up taking 2 or 3 days off in a row because I was so sick of the training routine, but hey sometimes you just have to listen to what your body is telling you. I've found that you learn so much about yourself, your body's limits not only physically, but mentally as well.

Now that B2B is over, it's now officially the off season and it feels like such a huge relief off my shoulders to be done with this season. All and all this season was an amazing experience and I can't wait for what next season holds in store for me.

Thank you!
Now, I just have to finish this post with a HUGE, I mean HUGE thank you to Jess who absolutely had to deal with my high training volumes during this season. I also have to give a GINORMOUS thank you the support my Parents, Mr. & Mrs Ellis gave me as well. Without them I wouldn't have been able to do what I did this season. My dad was a great support for me and has been for quite sometime. For those of you who don't know, they made it to all of my track and cross country meets in high school to support me and have been to every major triathlon event I've done. The exception to that was my 1st ever triathlon because I was superstitious about them being there since the first one I signed up for I ended up getting injured.

Beach 2 Battleship 140.6 - Race Report - Wilmington, NC

2008-11-04T19:41:00.009-05:00

Official Results:
12:17:35
178th OA out of 397, 14th M25-29 out of 22

B2B was not only my first Iron distance race, but it was also the first time Setup Events had put on an Iron distance triathlon. Now I've heard all the great things about Setup Events from Triathlete Magazine, but I've also heard about them from two local triathletes who have experienced a lot of their races, Scott DeWire and Rebecca DeWire, who I also went to high school with and live down in North Carolina. Setup Events put on the most amazing race despite all of the logistical issues they had to deal with. The only other company I can compare them to is EndorFun Sports who also puts on Timberman and Mooseman up in New England.

Pre-Race Events..
Race morning started out with me getting up at 4:00am to have breakfast, shower and get ready so that Jess, Dad and I could make it to T1 by 5:30am. We got down to T1, got bodymarked and then I went into T1 to make sure my bike was all set before the race. I went to go top off my tires with air only to find my rear tire flat. So I went to go find the bike tech for the race only to find that many other triathletes had the same problems with flat tires. By the time he got around to my bike it was time for me to catch the 2nd to last bus out to the Swim Start. Since I had spent all this time making sure my bike was all set for the race I had no time to stretch out prior to the start of the race. Once we got out to the Swim Start drop off I hurried off the bus and was able to stretch for about 5-10 minutes only for race officials saying we needed to hurry up and get down to the swim start because we only had 10 minutes till the start of the race. After stretching a little I hurried and threw my wetsuit on and got down to the swim start. Needless to say my day was off to the wrong start and I felt so rushed race morning that I didn't have time for my usual pre-race rituals and stretching.

Swim 2.4 miles: 55:58, 113th OA, 11th AG
You'll look at this swim time and be wowed, but don't be fooled, the race took place in a tidal ocean channel. They told us that we would be starting our swim at the peak of the tide so the current would be really fast and it was! The water temp at the swim start was 68 degrees and didn't feel cold at all despite the fact that the air was 38 degrees at race start, but once we got towards the marina for the swim exit, there were pockets of some seriously cold/freezing water!

I finished the swim a little faster than I had anticipated because of the current. The swim exit consisted of climbing up ladders attached to a boat dock and then running / jogging 300 yards through a parking lot, across a street and then into T1 to grab my changing bag for the bike leg. The run from the marina to T1 was absolutely FREEZING!! The whole run I couldn't feel my feet and I felt like I was running with ice blocks on my feet. Once inside the changing tent, it was packed with guys changing into there bike gear, but luckily I was able to find a chair to sit on and put on all my gear. T1 took awhile because I struggled to put on my arm warmers and leg warmers since I was shaking violently because I was so cold and I couldn't feel my hands that well. While I was there I also put on gloves and for the first time on the bike leg I wore bike socks to keep my feet warmer. I didn't put on much warmer clothing because I didn't want to sweat later on the bike since that day it was going to get up to 72 degrees.

Bike 112 miles: 6:45:59 (16.55 mph), 284th OA, 19th AG
Two words come to mind for this leg: FREEZING & FRUSTRATING. The first hour to hour and half on the bike was absolutely freezing! I think that I was suffering from hypothermia for a little while and was ready to DNF that first hour. I was so cold that I was shaking violently while I was riding that I thought I was going to fall off my bike. After that first hour on the bike I warmed up enough, but didn't start to get feeling back in my toes until about mile 75 or 80.

The bike leg was very frustrating for me because I ended up having to deal with 2 front tire flats during the race, which cost me 45 minutes to an hour of down time. My first flat as you know was while I was in T1 before the race. My second flat came at about mile 45. I was able to get my tire off and the blown tube out and then new tube in, but then I couldn't get the tire back on because my hands were cold. While I kept trying to get my tire back on, bike support came by and finished it and got me back on the road in no time, but this 2nd flat cost me about 30 minutes of time. Once back on the road I started catching the people that passed me while I was on the side of the road and was getting back into a good rhythm. By the time I got to mile 60 it was warm enough to stop at the Bike Special needs aid station and I dropped off my arm warmers and gloves. I didn't take off my leg warmers since I still couldn't feel my feet. I then made it to about mile 85 and I had another front tire blow out. Since I had used all my spare tubes for the first 2 flats, I had no tubes left to fix it. Fortunately enough, someone going by stopped and gave me their last tube. I was very thankful of them, I just wish I had caught there number so I could contact them and tell them thank you. Again I had to wait for bike support to get my tire back on again. This time I was down about 15 minutes to 30 minutes. I knew that once I got my 3rd flat my family and Jess would be really worried that I hadn't been in my predicted time. Well sure enough, they were. As I exited the run I yelled to my dad that I ended up with 2 flats and that besides that everything was good.

Despite all my bike issues, I loved the flatness and openness of the bike leg, I just wish I was able to pull off a decent time.

Run 26.2: 4:18:16 (9:51 per mile pace), 86th OA, 9th AG
Heading out of T2, my legs were a little tired, but they didn't feel that bad. I had a hard time getting my mile splits on the first loop since the mile markers where a little off so I had no idea where I was time wise until I came around to head back out for my 2nd loop. I ran the first half marathon in about 2 hours. The 2nd loop was a different story. I ended up walking a little more since I was really starting to get tired. The portions I walked the most was when we had to head up the bridges and on ramps since these were the only hills to speak of on the run course. The run course was okay, but the best part was when we headed into downtown Wilmington and there were a ton of people down there supporting everyone that went by, which was great. The run definitely required a lot of mental strength and there were times where I thought I was just going to break down, but I just kept thinking of the finish line and seeing my family and Jess there waiting for me. I can't say that I hit the wall at all during the run. I made sure that I listened to my body and took in whatever I needed when I felt it coming on. I remember hitting the aid stations at miles 15 and 18 and eating Oreos and washed them down with water. I've never eaten Oreos that tasted so good! After fueling up between miles 15 and 18 I felt great again and ended up running strong from miles 18 until the finish line.

The finish line was amazing! What a great feeling it was coming down the finish line chute and they are calling out your name as you cross. After crossing the finish line I was quickly greeted by my mom, Jess, Katie, my parents friends and childhood babysitter Kari and Gary. Also, Mr. DeWire and my Dad came shortly after because they were down at the entrance to Battleship road to give me a high five as I came in.

Below is a post race photo of Jess, Scott and Rebecca Dewire and myself:

Post Race Comments:
I'd really like to thank my family and most of all Jess for supporting me during my racing and training for such a long event. I knew that it took lots of time for me to train for and now it's over. I'm really looking forward to spending more time with Jess and my family now that the triathlon season is over. Looking ahead to next season, I can't wait to tackle the 2 half's I'm signed up for and I'm already thinking of doing another Iron Distance race in 2010 because of this race performance, but we'll see.

B2B Quick Update

2008-11-03T02:35:00.003-05:00

Back in CT for the night before I head back to MA after the long drive back from NC.

Results:
12:17:35 (S=55:58, B=6:45:59, R=4:18:16)
179th OA out of 500
14th M 25-29 out of 22

This was not the race I had expected nor wanted to have. Morning started off with a rear flat before the race started and then 2 front flats during the race.

Full report to follow.

Week 17 & The Long Weekend

2008-10-13T21:45:00.003-04:00

Going into this week my goal was to get in my Long Bike and Long Run in this weekend, which I was able to do. This week I was also able to bike at lunch and then one day I biked from work after work and back and drove back home. I've found that the only way to get my bike mileage in is to modify the time in which I work out, hence the bike rides starting at work. So far it's worked out great and hopefully I can continue this until B2B. The only thing I regret this week was not being able to get in more than 2 runs this week and a brick workout, but what are you going to do.

This past week was also the first time I decided to give Yoga a try. All I can say is that the poses you see on TV or at the gym that these people do look much easier then when I tried doing them. I never thought I'd say this, but it was a great way to stretch out and get in a workout. One of my limiters in triathlon is that I've very tight and very unflexible. I just wish that I had started yoga earlier in my training to help me out. I'll have to remember this for next year and the off season to keep loose.

Friday was an interesting workout day since I had to move my long swims indoors. Where I've been swimming at outside has turned to cold for me, even in a wetsuit. I tried swimming there last Friday and it took me about an hour to finally get warm again! I drove home from Stiles Pond last Friday with my heat cranked in my car absolutely freezing my butt off! So needless to say Friday's workout consisted of swimming 92 laps in the pool.....talk about monotonous and boring!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post this Weekend's goal was to get in a Long Ride in on Saturday and then a Long Run on Sunday. This last long ride before B2B was another great way to try one more nutrition scheme for B2B. I ended up using 1 Hammer Perpetum Bottle, 1 Hammer Heed Drink, 2 Water Bottles, a few gels and 2 Power Bars. I ended up using everything, but the Hammer Perpetum bottle. I used about half of the Perpetum, but I found that when I used this last time that I didn't like the taste so I was a little worried about using it this time. Needless to say it still wasn't that bad, but I think this is something I won't end up using for B2B. I think my nutrition that I used on my last long ride will work, which was 2 water bottles, 2 bottles of Accelerade, and gels. I think the only thing I'll modify is bringing a Powerbar with me since I just get sick of the gels after about 50+ miles. Saturday's ride consisted of riding of 94.6 miles and it was a tough 94 miles. I only ended up averaging 18.8 mph, which took me 5 hours to complete. I think the reason it was so hard was that the nutrition plan I had tried didn't work that well for me on this go around. After the ride I was absolutely wiped out and hungry as hell! I just hope that come race day, I'll be fine and I won't get hungry.

This past Sunday was the first time I had ever run over 13.1 miles. That's right, even in training for my Half Marathon and Half Iron distance Triathlons, I only ran up to 10 or 11 miles in training. I ended up running 19.66 miles at a 7:44 per mile pace, which my dad said was still to fast. Even after stretching out and getting ready for the run, I wasn't sure how my legs were going to feel, but they were still a little tired and sore from the long bike ride the day before. Needless to say, the 7:44 per mile pace felt great up till about 10 or 11 miles in and then I found myself having to stop and walk 4-5 times on the way back. I didn't want to stop and walk that much so when I walked it wasn't for very long, maybe at the most a minute or so. With this being my only long run before B2B, it will definitely make the marathon interesting come race day.

All and all it was a great week, but a very tiring and long workout weekend. I'm still on the ropes about going into a 2 week or 3 week taper since this coming week is suppose to be another hard week followed by 2 weeks of tapering before B2B. Anyone have any thoughts / experience they want to share? Feel free to leave comments and thank you to everyone that has been following my blog.

Here are this Weeks totals:

Swim - 10,164 yards
Bike - 140.76 miles
Run - 27.84 miles

Week 16

2008-10-13T21:01:00.004-04:00

Week 16
Since I haven't posted here in about 2 weeks I really can't remember anything to significant about Week 16, so here are the totals below.

Swim - 6,556 yards
Bike - 67.38 miles
Run - 18.94 miles

Week 15 - Recovery...

2008-10-03T19:13:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of this week I ended up taking Monday off to recover from my Half on Sunday.
Tuesday
I felt great and wanted to get back to my scheduled training so I decided to hit the pool and I was only able to swim 1,800 yards before my body had enough. I guess I still wasn't fully recovered from my Half and was still on my high from having such a great race.
Wednesday
I decided that it was time to bike to and from work since the days are getting shorter, it's harder to get the bike time in and I really don't want to get on the trainer just yet. It was a pretty uneventful day and my legs weren't to tired when I got home from work. The round trip ride is just over 32 miles, which isn't to bad.
Thursday
I really wanted to get back to swimming and this was the first time I was able to finish the scheduled workout. Then after work I ended up going for a 25 mile ride and when I got up on Friday morning my legs were toast!
Friday & The Weekend
Friday morning my legs felt like they had just done a race again. Needless to say I didn't workout the rest of the week and weekend and took Friday to Sunday off. I didn't want to take this many days off consecutively, but I had to since I had to travel to Long Island, New York for my friend Kelly's wedding.

Here are the totals for Week 15:

Swim - 4,444 yards
Bike - 58.15 miles
Run - 0 miles

Week 14 - Ironman Training

2008-10-03T19:02:00.002-04:00

Week 14 was the week of the Firmman Half Ironman and as you may recall this was suppose to be a hard week of training, but because the Half was postponed to this week, I had to take an unscheduled Taper Week to prepare myself for this race. I ended up taking the advice from my friend, Scott DeWire and only had 2 swim workouts, 1 bike and 2 runs this week, which doesn't include race day. I wasn't sure what to do going into this week, hence why I took Scott's advice. He was saying that because this is only my 2nd time going this distance that it would be a good idea to take a Taper week and then get back to hard training for Beach 2 Battleship. Well, as you may have read about in my race report, it was a great race and an awesome PR for the 70.3 distance.

Here are the totals for Week 14:

Swim - 8,712 yards
Bike - 76.93 miles
Run - 21.48 miles

Firmman Pictures

2008-10-03T07:07:00.002-04:00

Timberman Triathlon 70.3

2008-10-01T06:32:00.004-04:00

As of this morning I've signed up for Timberman Half Ironman, which is on August 23, 2009. I also noticed that one of my old high school running teammates had signed up, Jason Widstrom. I just hope he can make it this year since he wasn't able to this past year because of injuries. I can't wait for this race next year!

Ironman RI 70.3 - July 12, 2009

2008-09-29T06:12:00.005-04:00

It's official! I registered for the 2009 Ironman RI 70.3 distance race, which is on July 12, 2009. My main goal for next year is to qualify for the 70.3 World Championship race, which is held in November 2009. Qualifying for the championship race is very tough since there are only 45 age group slots available for that race. This means I'd have to at least finish in the top 3 of my age group, I believe. If I don't make it at this race I'll at least have another chance when I register for Timberman 2009.

2008 Firmman Half Race Report

2008-09-22T18:31:00.006-04:00

Official Results:
14th OA out of 246, 1st M25-29 out of 19; 4:36:03

All I can say is wow! I blew away my predicted time by 9 minutes! I have never been so calm the day before and the day of a race than I had been at this one. I was actually able to sleep well and didn't even wake up thinking about the race, which was awesome! Usually I have the hardest time sleeping before a big race. The funniest part was that my parents and Jess were shocked that I was soo calm, I think they were more nervous than I was.

The day before the race we didn't have time to drive the course because we had a late start heading down to Connecticut because of prior commitments Jess had. We ended up staying at my parents house the night before the race because we also were celebrating my dad's birthday, which is September 23rd. We ended up celebrating his birthday at my favorite restaurant, California Pizza Kitchen. They make this killer pizza that I love called the Tostada, its basically a taco covered pizza. So that was the pre-race dinner "carbo-loading," if you will. Anyway, after celebrating my dad's birthday it was an early bed time at 9:30PM and we were up at 4:00AM the next morning so we could drive part of the race course. Needless to say we left a little later than we wanted because I'm so slow getting ready in the morning so we only drove the first and last 5 miles of the bike course and none of the run course. It really didn't worry me for some reason that we didn't drive the course because I figured there would be enough volunteers on course that I wouldn't be able to get lost and also because I was in the last swim wave and I'd be catching people all day.

Swim 1.2 Miles: 29:20, 50th OA, 6th AG
Since this race was postponed 2 weeks it was a cold start to the race. The air was about 50 degrees, but the good thing was that the water was much warmer and in the Upper 60's, if not 70 degrees. It was my first ocean swim ever in a triathlon, which was very interesting needless to say. If you don't know Narragansett Beach, then I'll tell you that the waves are about 3-5 feet high. Each swim wave started on the beach and then everyone ran into the crashing waves. After you fought the waves on the way out, it was pretty calm water. The good thing was that you were swimming with the current, which made the swim times pretty quick. I started in the last swim wave or the 5th swim wave. The start for me was a little crazy trying to get through the waves, but once I got through them I settled down and got into a good pace. It was tough to sight the buoys since I was up and down in the waves, so I think I spent more time sighting than any other race. The swim exit was also interesting since you had to fight the waves on the way back in, luckily that was pretty uneventful for me. Once I got to shallow enough water I stood up slowly because the last time I did a half I made the mistake of standing up to fast and my hamstrings froze up on me. This was the first race I came out of the water not feeling tired and my arms didn't feel like they were going to fall off!

Transition 1: 2:20
This was pretty uneventful, but there were no wetsuit strippers at this race, but I was still able to improve my time from my first half, since I didn't have to fumble around with my helmet. I did have a hard time getting my gels into my jersey pockets because my hands were cold from the swim, oh well.

Bike 56 miles (actually 56.34): 2:36.01 (21.5 mph), 33rd OA, 2nd AG
This was my best bike leg in a race to date! I've never felt so comfortable on the bike till now. My long rides seem like they are starting to pay off. As soon as I got on the bike I started drinking water. I didn't start to intake gels till about 1 hour into the ride. For whatever reason my body wasn't craving the food even as I started taking in the gels. I figured I should get them in now even if I wasn't hungry because if I didn't get them in early then I would pay for it on the run. I was catching people the whole bike ride from the 4 swim waves ahead of me. The whole bike ride I kept looking for guys in my age group and I didn't start catching guys in my age group until about 20 miles in when I caught 2 of them at about the same point and from there on I didn't see anyone else. The bike course had a few little hills, but nothing crazy and was pretty flat. The only thing that sucked about the bike ride for me was I hit a rough patch of road and lost of my premixed Accelerade bottles, so I missed out on some needed calories, carbs and protein, which was another reason why I ended up going through all my gels on the bike. The good thing was that I was prepared for this and had carried extra gels with me just in case. The only thing I ended up picking up at the bike aid station was an extra water. Returning to the transition area my legs felt great.

Transition 2: 1:39
This went pretty smooth, but lost some time because I had a hard time finding my rack...rookie mistake, what can I say about that. Once I found my area, I threw on my socks, shoes, grabbed 4 -5 more gels and my race number belt and headed out for my run.

Run 13.1 Miles: 1:26:41 (6:36/mile) 3rd OA, 1st AG
Time and Time again this has proven to be my fastest and strongest leg for the triathlon, so needless to say I wasn't that surprised to learn that this was my where I finished with my Overall place and Age Group place. I felt so good coming of the bike that my 1st mile split was way to fast at 5:48! I quickly settled in to a much slower pace after that 1st mile. I actually had upper abdominal cramps up through mile 4, but then they went away after that. I think that was because I ate 2 gels with about 10-15 miles left on the bike. I skipped the first few aid stations, but then started stopping at most them and took in HEED and water. I took my first gel in at mile 7-8 and then took a caffeine gel at mile 10 for insurance, to make sure that no one would catch me. The worst part of this was that run finish was on the beach. I had decided to take the longer run down to the water to avoid the deep sand and then worked my way back up to the finish at the transition area finish line.

Race Recap:
I knew I was on pace for a 4:37 half by the time I reached the 8 mile mark in the half marathon and because I was keeping track of my mile splits I had a good idea of where I was going to finish. I knew my goal was a 4:45, but I ended up crushing it. All and all this race has given me the confidence I need to continue my training for B2B and I'm looking forward to see how I make out at the Iron Distance Race. I also want to thank my Parents and Jess for all there support for coming to watch and supporting me during my training and races. I wouldn't be able to do it without the love and support of my friends and family. So here's a big thank you to everyone that has had a big influence on me in triathlon (Jess, Mom and Pop Ellis, Scott DeWire, Rebecca Dewire, Thor Kirleis and my other Trifurian training partners.)

Firmman Half - Quick Update

2008-09-21T18:47:00.002-04:00

Talk about an awesome performance today! I beat my predictions and put an awesome PR in the books for the Half! I absolutely crushed the field and my age group division. I'll post a more detailed report later this week.

14th OA / 3rd AG 25-29 - 4:36:03 - PR

Firmman Half - Pre-Race Thoughts / Prediction

2008-09-20T11:16:00.002-04:00

With the Firmman Half Ironman tomorrow, I figured I'd post my time predictions without having seen the race course. See below.

Swim
Even though my training volume for the swim has been up training for the Ironman, I think I may improve my time a little compared to my Mooseman time due to the fact that its an ocean swim and I've been told that its with the current. Predicted Time: 28-30 minutes

Bike
I feel like I've made some huge improvements here considering I have a much more solid bike base than I did going into Mooseman. I've been able to get in 3 rides of 50 miles or more and training weeks with about 100 miles of biking. I've also been able to maintain a good average speed for myself over these rides. I should improve here, but the only difference is that I won't have a set of race wheels for this race like I did at Mooseman. Predicted Time: 2:40 - 2:45 (21.3 mph - 20 mph average speed)

Run
Unsure of this one due to the fact that my longest run has still been a measly 8 miles while still trying to train for my Ironman, which in itself is scary. It's still been my strongest leg to date, not matter what my running base mileage has been to do date, so I'm hoping it will be faster or about the same. Predicted Time: 1:30 - 1:40 (7:00 - 7:40 per mile pace)

Overall
I'd love to be able to finish in the 4:45 to 5:00 hour range all depending on how hilly and/or flat the course is. I feel like I'm in good enough shape to really pull off a descent time tomorrow, but I guess time will only tell! I'll be sure to post a race report on how I make out.

Shawn M. Nassaney 5K - Smithfield, RI - Sept. 14, 2008

2008-09-18T21:26:00.006-04:00

The Shawn M. Nassaney 5K Race/Walk is a race that I started doing since last year, because my 2nd cousin Stacey Nassaney (formally Bliss) married Ryan Nassaney, who was Shawn's brother. Shawn unfortunately was on United Flight 175 on September 11, 2001 along with his girlfriend Lynn Goodchild who were on there way to Hawaii. If you remember, United Flight 175 was the first plane to hit the Twin Towers. The race was put in place in Memory of Shawn Nassaney and Lynn Goodchild and is held as his Alma Mater, Bryant College in Smithfield, RI. Since I've started doing this race I promised myself I would do this race in Shawn's memory and will continue this race for as long as I'm able and as long as the race is held.

Race Day
I wasn't looking to set any PR's on this course or beat my time from last year since I just biked 93 miles the day before. Jess and I got to the race a little later than we wanted, but I still had time to stretch out and get ready. As you may or may not know and from what my dad keeps making fun of me for is that I hate having a slow time next to my name. So needless to say, once I got warmed up and stretched out I changed my race plan from just using this as a training run to I'm going to race this to see how I fair. After getting all warmed up, I headed for the start line and got a good luck kiss from Jess and told her I'd see her at the finish line when I got done. Jess did the 2 mile walk while I did the 5k Run. My parents and grandparents were also at the race to watch as well.

The race start is a little crazy for this 5K since it starts in a big open field and then narrows going up a short hill before looping around the baseball fields and then heads into the woods with the return trip that heads up a huge hill! This course is by no means flat. The start is so crazy because just about all the sports teams from Bryant College come and show there support for Shawn and sprint the first 300 yards like the race is only a mile long. It’s a little annoying if you’re a serious runner and you're trying to get to the front before getting into the woods where the paths are narrow.

The start of the race was much more chaotic this year than last year. We got all lined up and we were waiting for the gun to go off and then all of sudden you hear then just shout go runners over the PA to start the race. Everyone didn’t even know what to do so the race start was little delayed. After I got thru the pack of college kids that sprinted out the first 400 yards I was in about 8th place. I was even running with the 2 lead women runners. The first mile split was quick, a 5:24 pace! I unfortunately wasn’t able to get my other mile splits so I had a hard time judging where I was pace wise after that.

As a side note, the weather prior to the race start was absolutely nasty. It was down pouring the night before and even the day of the race. Fortunately it stopped about an hour before the race, but the race was enough to leave the course very muddy, slick and soaked!

Once I got into the woods I was able to get ahead of the 2 top women runners and pass 2 or 3 other guys. I exited the woods to find myself in 6th place and as I got closer to the finish I was reeling in the guy ahead of me at a decent pace and got him with less than a ¼ of a mile to go and held onto it to finish 5th Overall and 3rd in my Age Group 19-29.

Time: 18:16 (5:54 per mile pace) PR for this course by 13 seconds from 2007

Team Buddy / Ninjas
Yes, you may find this team name very funny, but my family knows that I use these words just about all the time, such as “YOU’RE A NINJA” or you’ll hear me say, “YOU’RE A BUDDY!” So this year my sister Katie decided to create a team called Buddy / Ninjas. I didn’t race under the team title, but my sister, her friend Nicole, my Dad, and my sister’s college friend Julia did.

It was on my way to my own finish that my mom shouted out to me where I was place wise, but also that my sister had taken a spill. I figured that okay she fell, no big deal and she was back up running and was going to finish the race. It wasn’t till I finished the race that I learned my sister took a really bad spill heading down the first hill into the woods. Let me tell you, it looked bad! It was her ankle and it was the size of Softball! They carted her over to an ambulance that was on standby for the Bryant Football game and the race. They thought that she broke it, but come to find out she severely sprained it, which is just as bad as a break.

Race Feedback and Personal Rant
As I mentioned before, I run this race for Shawn and will always run this race. With that said, I don’t mean to provide negative feedback on the race, but just want to make the race directors aware of what needs to be done in the future to improve the race. I heard from someone else that raced this with me that Race day Registration should have opened at 11AM, but wasn’t even up and ready to go till 11:30AM and was very disorganized with what they needed to give the runners and walkers. Also, I’ve never been to a race where 1 person gets 4 awards, I mean come on! I don’t mean to sound like a poor sport, but awards are meant to spread through out the field. Needless to say 1 runner, I won’t name any names, but he was awarded, the Team Award (for the 1st place team), 1st Bryant College Alumni Male Award, 1st Male 19-29 Award and then an award for finishing in the top 3 overall. I couldn’t believe what had happened! I was completely shocked! Last year’s awards were not done this way. I finished 4th in my age group last year, but I was considered the top male because the other 3 males that finished ahead of me in my age group were either part of teams or part of the Bryant Alumni. Needless to say I walked away with nothing for finishing 3rd in my age group.

Despite all this, it was a good race and was somewhat of a good measurement of where my fitness level is right now.

Week 13 - Peak Phase

2008-09-14T21:05:00.003-04:00

I couldn't believe that when I looked at my training plan that this week was the start of my peak phase. I was excited and nervous at the same time because hitting the peak phase means that race day is getting that much closer. As each week passes I'm beginning to doubt my abilities of being able to finish the Ironman. The only aspect that scares me right now is the running portion and from looking at my mileage totals from the past few weeks, you can see why I'm worried even though I consider the run my strongest link in triathlon

All worries aside this week was a tough week to get bike workouts in since the days are getting shorter. I'm hoping that this week I can start biking to work so that I can get my workouts in. Friday mornings swim was my longest swim yet at 3,700 yards and it was a great workout. I had to swim this in 2 portions since I do have to be to work at 8am, so I swam 1.2 miles in the morning and than swam the rest at lunch time and then ran 8 miles after work. Another reason this was a great workout weekend was that I had my 2nd longest ride of the year over 50 miles. I ended up biking 93 miles on Saturday while averaging 19.5 mph. I also ended up doing the Shawn M. Nassaney 5k race on Sunday, but I'll do a seperate post on this.

Here are this weeks totals:

Swim - 8,496 yards
Bike - 120.46 miles
Run - 16.65 miles

Week 12 - Recovery Week

2008-09-14T20:40:00.002-04:00

Going into Week 12 I was really looking forward to the Firmman Half on the weekend to see how I'd make out at my second attempt at this distance, but that ended getting postponed until September 21st because of the remnants of Hurricane Hannah. I ended up getting in some great workouts in my recovery week and still took Saturday off as a recovery day since it would have been the day before the race, but also because of the weather. Well the weather ended up being great on Sunday so I decided to get in a brick workout. The brick consisted of a 45 mile ride at a 21.0 mph average followed by a 5 mile run at a 7:02 per mile pace. Needless to say I think race day I would have had a great performance.

Here are the totals for Week 12:

Swim - 6,466 yards
Bike - 84.19 miles
Run - 19.64 miles

Week 11 - Red Soxs / Yankees & Bike Upgrades

2008-09-01T17:43:00.004-04:00

I'm sure you are reading the title of this blog and wondering why I've put the Red Soxs and Yankees in the title and I'll tell you why later. Going into this week I knew that I was going to have a half day Friday for the Labor Day weekend and that Thursday I was going to be in New York for the Red Soxs and Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. Also, as part of this week I dropped my bike off at a fairly new bike shop in Peabody called Fitwerx. Fitwerx is where local elite triathlete Dean Phillips works and is co-owner of the Peabody shop. Anyway, I dropped it off for a basic tune up and also got a few new bike upgrades. While I had it at the shop I had them install a Chris King Headset and my new Ultegra SL brakes that I snagged off of eBay.
Since this week was short and crazy I missed quite a few workouts including Wednesday's bike, Thursdays Brick, and Friday's Long Swim and Long Bike. I was however able to get in a 4 hour, 80 mile bike ride in on Saturday, which was awesome, but very tiring.
So back to the Soxs / Yankees Game; every year our estimating department at work does an outing for team building. So this year we decided that we were going to go to the Yankees / Soxs game at Yankee Stadium since this is the last year of the old stadium. Thursday was an early morning since we had to catch the train at 7:00 AM in Westwood, which from N. Andover is a 45 min drive. We then caught the Acela train and took it to Penn Station. After arriving we made it to street level, grabbed a quick lunch and drinks and headed to the game. What a hot day to be sitting in the bleachers that day! Well to keep this short, the Soxs lost and I didn't get back till midnight and had to be at work on Friday, so needless to say Thursday and Friday were lost as far as my workouts go.
Week 12 is a Recovery / Taper week for which I'm suppose to be doing an Olympic this week, but since I couldn't find one I'm doing another Half Ironman in Narragansett, RI, the Firmman Half.

Here are this weeks total:

Swim - 4,048 yards
Bike - 93.05 miles
Run - 4.95 miles (YIKES!) I need to get my butt running!!!

Week 10

2008-08-31T21:26:00.003-04:00

Wow, what a week! Going into this week I felt great, but I wasn't able to get in some key weekend workouts. I ended up missing my scheduled brick on Saturday because Friday I decided, since it was my half day at work, that I'd get home from work and go for an 8 mile run and then try to go for a 2nd run later in the day. Well after making a very dumb mistake, I didn't end up going on the second run. Here's what happened, the route I usually run for my 8 miles is usually in the shade, but that's in the morning at about 9am - 10am on Saturday when I run it. Well when I ran the route in the afternoon I had planned on the same thing so I decided that I wasn't going to need any water with me on my run when it was 81 degrees out. I made it about 3-4 miles and I was suffering without water. The good thing is that I run a loop so on the way back I was able to stop at a youth center and hit a water fountain with a mile left to go in the run. I'll take it as a lesson learned that I'll always bring water with me from now on. Well after being whipped out from the week and the Friday 8 mile run, I decided not to do the brick workout on Saturday. Here are this weeks totals:

Swim - 7,280 yards
Bike - 81.97 miles
Run - 13.12 miles

Week 9 - Ironman Training

2008-08-19T20:06:00.005-04:00

The start of each training week I start off full of energy and then it tails off quickly as the week goes on and the workouts get longer. I wasn't able to get all my runs in this week, but as usual I did get in my swim and bike workouts in. The weekend was suppose to consist of a 4-1/2 hour bike ride, but was cut short because I was hoping to catch the group ride in the morning, but come to find out no one was there because there were so many people racing up in NH at Timberman. Since I had rushed out the door I grabbed everything, but my gels so the ride was cut short at 52 miles, which wasn't to bad, but I definitely need to get longer rides in. It wasn't a bad week, but I'm already looking forward to my recovery week.

Here are Week 9's totals:

Swim - 7,476 yards
Bike - 112.9 miles
Run - 12.1 miles

Week 8 of Ironman Training - Recovery

2008-08-10T20:17:00.002-04:00

It was hard to think of this week as a recovery week since the last 7 weeks have really been unproductive. The training plan called this week a recovery week so that's why I've labeled it as such. This was the first week I able to nail every single workout with the exception of 1 run. I was psyched to get in just about every workout considering the busy week I with work.

This weekends workouts were my best yet. Saturday consisted of a doing a brick, so I got up early to meet up with the Trifury Group ride. Even though where we ride from is only 1.5 miles from where Jess and I live now, I drove the car there so I could just throw my shoes on there and do the 5 mile run loop from the parking lot after my bike ride. I ended up doing 30.93 miles of biking with the group ride while averaging 21.7 mph and then ran 5 miles at a 6:57 pace. I can't say I was too disappointed with my run, but I wish I was a little faster. (I guess that's what 7 weeks with little to no running will do to you!) Sunday I was able to get in a nice 8 miler at a 6:25 pace, which was great! Oh and I forgot to mention that training here in North Andover is very, very hilly compared to Woburn. I've been going out for my runs lately and I wonder why I feel like I'm dying, then I remind myself that the first 2-3 miles of my runs were mostly up hill!

All and all here are this weeks totals:

Swim - 5,403 yards
Bike - 96.72 miles
Run - 17.98 miles

A Long Awaited Post....

2008-08-04T20:30:00.001-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted on my blog, but there's a good reason why. My girlfriend Jess and I made the decision to move in together as soon as our leases were up on August 1st. So as of July 25th, Jess and I have been officially been living together. With all the packing, unpacking and moving the last few weeks have been a little unproductive with training for B2B.

Since I haven't written in a long time, I'm currently in Week 8 of my 18 week training plan for B2B Ironman on November 1st. As you'll notice I've hit most of my workouts for the swimming and biking, but my running is something yet to be desired. Here are the totals for Weeks 1 through 7 below.

Week 1:

Swim - 4,638 yards
Bike - 59.82 miles
Run - 0 miles

Week 2:

Swim - 3,806 yards
Bike - 74.31 miles
Run - 5.11 miles

Week 3:

Swim - 4,532 yards
Bike - 66.59 yards
Run - 6.36 miles

Week 4:

Swim - 880 yards
Bike - 88.43 miles
Run - 3.2 miles

Week 5:

Swim - 6,292 yards
Bike - 85.27 miles
Run - 4.21 miles

Week 6:

Swim - 2,552 yards
Bike - 0
Run - 5 miles

Week 7:

Swim - 5,060 yards
Bike - 107.57 miles
Run - 2.62 miles

Powow Triathlon

2008-07-13T19:50:00.001-04:00

RESULTS: 1:08:40, 7th OA out of 415, 1st AG M25-29 out of 16
The Powow Sprint was my first race since my half ironman and I was pumped up for this race since I'd be able to compare this years results to last years. The other reason I was excited for this race was that I wanted to win my Age Group again. Last year I finished 20th overall and 1st in my Age Group in a time of 1:12:01. Here are my splits from last year:
2007 Splits
Swim: 11:06 T1: 2:08 Bike: 36:41 T2: 1:17 Run: 20:51 Total: 1:12:01
20th Overall, 1st AG M25-29

The night before the race I figured I'd sleep fine, but needless to say I was up at 1:30AM not able to sleep and going over the race in my head. I was hoping this wouldn't happen since it was just a Sprint, but it did. There is no other race that makes me lose sleep than triathlon. I must say that I love it and hate it. I can go into a Half Marathon or any other road race and sleep fine the night before, but for some reason I get so anxious for race day the night before a triathlon. On top of all this the night before I had just come back from vacation on Friday afternoon. By the time I got home Friday from the Cape after taking the Ferry back from Martha's Vineyard it was about 4:15pm. Then I was off to get my race numbers and then drive the bike course to make sure it didn't change from the year before. Needless to say it was a hectic night before a race and Jess and I didn't get to bed till about 10pm, which is late for me before a race. Then to top things off, my alarm didn't go off in the morning and we were running around race day morning. Race day morning was crazy, we had planned to get up at 4:30AM, but the alarm didn't go off and I didn't wake up till 5am. When I saw what time it was, I jumped out of bed and ran down to eat breakfast and then I still had to pack my tri bag with all my gear, since I hadn't done it the night before. Luckily we still made it out the door by 6:15AM for a 45 minute ride to Amesbury, MA. Needless to say my warm-up consisted of allot of stretching and running a very little. Usually I like to get there and ride my bike to warm-up and then run and then just before the swim Start I usually swim a quick warm-up. Anyway here my splits and write up below.

1/2 Mile Swim: 12:12 (29th OA, 5th AG)
I was in the First Swim Wave, which consisted of Males 34 and under. We all had to line up on shore to go through the timing chip mat and then line up in the water a little more than waist deep. We waited about 30 seconds and we were off. I had a great jump on the field and going into the turn at the first buoy I was about 4th in my swim wave. I had definitely gone out way to hard and I was starting to feel it by the second turn buoy. By the time I got to shore I was 6th out of the water in my swim wave. I looked down at my watch and I was a little disappointed to see that my swim time was 1:06 slower than last year. I figured that I'll have to make up that time in the bike and run. (Come to find out, allot of the athletes were saying the swim was a little longer than last year and if you look at the overall the results, the times were a little slower than last year as well.) (2007 - 11:06, 4th AG, 30th OA)

Transition 1: 1:28
This by far must have been my fastest transition all year. It was great that the bike racks weren't to far away from the beach. I was also able to get my wetsuit zipper undone quicker and then rip it off my legs much better this time around. I haven't gotten comfortable with starting the bike leg with my shoes on my bike yet, so I had to put my bike shoes on in transition, but overall I improved my transition time 40 seconds which is huge! (2007 - 2:08)

12.6 Mile Bike: 35:02, 21.5 mph (17th OA, 1st AG)
The bike leg started out great with me passing someone in transition and then catching another rider about half way in. The only downside was that I ended up getting passed by 2 riders from the 2nd swim wave. Also while on vacation I ended up doing my 2nd longest ride of the season, 45 miles and could still feel the affects of this on the bike ride, but once I was about half way in, I felt okay. Overall, I was happy to find out in the results that my bike time was the fastest for my age group and that I had improved my time from last year by 1:39. (2007 - 36:41, 1st AG, 30th OA)

Transition 2: 0:56
As I came into to dismount the bike I had already taken my feet out from my bike pedals and was ready to run through the dismount line. This transition has been getting much better as my bike handling skills improve. Once I dismounted from the bike I ran to my transition area and threw on my shoes, I was going to throw on socks, but decided against it, since it was only a 3.2 mile run and I'm glad I did, otherwise I would have lost some time here. All and all I improved this transition time by 21 seconds from last year. (2007 - 1:17)

3.2 Mile Run: 19:05, 5:57 pace (2nd OA, 1st AG)
The run is and will always be my strongest leg. I felt great coming out of t2 and into the run. I ended up catching 1 of the guys from the previous swim wave, but in the overall results, it wasn't enough to finish ahead of him in the standing. The run was an out and back run and coming in from the bike I saw what ended up being the lead runner heading out for his run. I love the out and back runs since you can figure out where you are in the race on the way to the turn around. As I headed out to the turn around I started counting and found out that I was currently 5th overall, I couldn't believe that I was doing this well and I started to pick up my run as I came back in. I improved my time on the run by 1:46 from last year. (2007 - 20:51, 2nd AG, 13th OA)

Post Race:
It was great coming into the finish line and looking down at my watch to see that I had improved my time by about 4 minutes (Actual - 3:21) Of course this year I didn't have as many people cheering for me this year as I did last year. Last year my Parents, Grandparents, Aunt and Jess were there. This year at the finish line was just Jess, who is also my professional photographer and Number 1 Fan! (Sorry Mom and Dad, I know you were still on your vacation.) At the start of the race I was disappointed to find out that local Triathlete Dean Phillips was a scratch as an individual and learned he had joined up with a team. I finally introduced myself after the race and he remembered me from the JCC Triathlon, that he had won again this year. We got to talking and he told me that he hasn't been able to run since he has a knee injury, but he has been able to bike. I was hoping to pace off of Dean for the swim since he's strong there, but I knew I wouldn't have a chance to keep up with him on the bike since that is his strongest leg. All and all it was great race by Andy Hawkes, the race director, who I've come to know through my Aunt Judy who lives in Newburyport. Now it's time to get back to training for Beach 2 Battleship...stay tuned.

Half Max Qualified!

2008-07-04T08:51:00.004-04:00

Well as of yesterday I received my official email saying I had qualified for the Halfmax National Championship in Nevada! I had qualified for the race based on my performance at the Mooseman Half finishing in the top 33% of my age group. I was excited to get this email, but I also know that I won't be competing because of the race being so far away and my other race goals. If the race location was closer, I would definitely compete to see how I would perform.

The Past Few Weeks & Upcoming Training Plan

2008-06-29T10:07:00.006-04:00

The past 3 weeks after Mooseman has been a great time to relax, spend a little more time with Jess and catch up with coworkers for a few drinks after work. The first week after Mooseman was great to really reflect on what I had just accomplished and how well I had really performed considering the weather. It took a few days for that to all sink in after I really analyzed the results and talked it over with my dad. I spend the first 5 days after the race doing absolutely nothing, which was a great reward, but looking back, I should have stretched a little each day. After 5 days of rest I decided to give swimming a try and only ended up swimming 550 yards and then on Saturday I decided to try a group ride with TriFury to only bike 24 miles at a 20 mph pace.

Well after a week of rest, 2 weeks post Mooseman, I was hoping to get back to a some what normal training level only to find that my muscles still had that deep fatigue feeling to them. So my totals for my second week post Mooseman consisted of swimming 4,638 yards and biking 59 miles with no running.

Three weeks after Mooseman and I finally feel like I'm back to normal with no deep fatigue in my legs muscles and I started to amp up my miles this week. The only problem I ran into was the crazy Thunderstorms we were having this week really hampered my efforts with the swimming so needless to say I was only able to get 2 swim days in this week. I still ended up taking 3 total rest days and working out 4 days, which wasn't to bad. My totals this week were 3,806 yards of swimming, 74 miles of biking and 5 miles of running.

So what's to come, you may ask? In the big scheme of things my main goal is to concentrate on training for my 1st Ironman Distance Race, Beach 2 Battleship in Wilmington, NC on November 1st. I've been using this Secret Book, that my friend Scott Dewire mentioned on his blog that he has just learned about. I was surprised to learn that he didn't have this book with as many books that he has on triathlons. The book was issued by Triathlete Magazine and authored by Matt Fitzgerald. The title of the book is Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide - Plans, Scheduling Tips and Workout Goals for Triathletes of All Levels. I found out about this book while skimming through their magazine before I even started training for my first half this year. Needless to say it was a great guide and it has training plans from Sprint Distance to Ironman Distance. For every distance of triathlon it also has different levels with a Level 1 plan being the easiest and Level 10 being the hardest. I ended up choosing a Level 4 for my First Half and I've now gone through and picked a plan for my First Ironman distance. After looking through the different levels of training to see where they all peak out for mileage I decided to go with a Level 6 training plan for B2B. I figured that with the base I have from the training for my half that I'll be able to train at a higher level.

This coming week I'll finally be looking to get on track for my Level 6 training plan for B2B since I only have about 18 weeks left.

Mooseman Half - June 8, 2008

2008-06-09T22:00:00.005-04:00

Results: 5:07:32, 84th OA out of 723, 5th AG M25-29 out of 36

This was my first half ironman event and I was so nervous and anxious the week leading up to this event that I never fell into a deep sleep all week. The worst was that by the middle of the week they were predicting weather in the 90's for race day. Needless to say the temperature reached 89, which was 1 degree of from the the record high up there. But on the course the temperature easily felt like it was in the middle 90's if not hotter with the dew point and humidity. This was the race I had been training for since the middle of January and the only downside was that I wasn't able to get in my long ride until race day. Needless to say I'm pretty happy with my performance considering the heat conditions and the hilly course. I was predicting myself to finish in around 5 hours, but 7 minutes over my predicted time for the race conditions I'm not going to worry about.

1.2 Mile Swim: 31:32 (151th OA, 10th AG)

The water was 62 on race day which was very chilly considering I have a wetsuit that doesn't cover my arms. The swim start was an in water start about waist deep. I had predicted that I would finish the swim in 30 minutes to 34 minutes. I was in the first swim wave, which included the Elite/Pro's and males 34 and under. It was really awesome to be starting the swim wave with the Elites in the front. The swim was pretty uneventful and there isn't much to report here. The worst part of this was that going into T1 and to the Wetsuit Strippers was that my hamstrings tightened so bad that I couldn't move! I was screaming in pain it was that bad! I'm not sure if it had something to do with swimming in the cold water or not, but it was painful! I would say that swimming is my 2nd best discipline in triathlon, but isn't that great for me this year I think. Part of this could be that I gave up lifting weights about half way through my training plan, which I think affected my swim time.

56 Mile Bike: 2:50:28, 19.7 mph (148th OA, 10th AG)

I knew the bike leg was going to be my worst event of the day and was something I knew I was going to suffer through after the first loop. The course was a 28 mile, 2 loop course that had 1 very gnarly hill and a bunch of rolling hills. I was very surprised that I ended up being ahead of a few people in the final results considering this is not my strongest leg. The first 4 miles of this course had some very rough road conditions from the bad winter here in New England. In fact for must of the course there was very few areas to actually ride in the aero position. Another reason I didn't want to ride aero was due to the fact I didn't want to snap my aerobars again! The first loop of the bike went well. I brought with me on the bike leg, 1 bottle of Cytomax, 1 bottle of Monster Energy Drink mixed with Gatorade, 1 Bottle of Water and 5 Hammer Gels. Needless to say I ended up going thru my water, Cytomax and the 4 gels in the first loop and ended up picking up a few waters, 1 gel and gatorade endurance formula during the rest of the bike. I had predicted to finish the bike in 3 hours so I was happy to finish 10 minutes faster than what I had predicted considering the hills.

13.1 Mile Run: 1:40:10, (59th OA, 2nd AG)

Going into T2 I was expecting my legs to cramp up heading into the run and have that awkward feeling, but they didn't. I started out my first mile very strong and much better than I had expected, a 5:50 first mile! After I saw that on my watch, my quads started to cramp and gave up on me, so I started to walk. I hit the first aid station and picked up water and gatoride. By the time I got to the run, the heat was starting to get really bad! There were plenty of aid stations on this out and back run course, which was great! I ended up hitting all the aid stations for the sponges and the occasional hose down from the neighbors that lined the course. The run only had 1 real major hill with 1 small hill. I ended up having to walk both of these hills because my legs were absolutely dead. I can't even count how many times I ended up walking the run. It was awful because I have never ever walked a run in training, needless to say a race! I was hoping to run a much better half, but with the weather and the fact that I hadn't done a long bike ride prior to the half; pretty much killed my run leg even though I ended up having the 59th Overall fastest run time.

Post Race / Comments:

Keith Jordan, the race director, puts on one great event! They had plenty to do post race for athletes as far as food, drinks, etc. and from what my parents and Jess said there was plenty going on during the race. It was also great that Jess and my parents were up there to share with me my great accomplishment in my First Half Ironman.

Week 20 - Race Week

2008-06-09T10:00:00.001-04:00

Coming into Week 20 was great after having one last week of quality training in Week 19 and I was really looking forward to the up coming Half this weekend. I was definitely worried about the heat they had predicted for the weekend, since it was suppose to be in the 90’s. With my bike in the shop until Wednesday of this week, I only went out for one, 5 mile ride to see if everything was working okay. The reason for the ride was to test my race day setup. I ended up renting a set of Zipp 606 wheels for Mooseman. It was a good thing I went out for this short ride because I ended up having to run back to the bike shop on Saturday morning as soon as they opened. I had allot of front end vibration at only 15 mph and anything above that I thought I was going to dump the bike. After they took a look at it, for some reason there was an 'extra piece' of metal in the headset. There's nothing like a little last minute stress going into the race weekend!

This past week was a great taper week with only 2 days of swimming and 1 day of running. I was supposed to bike 3 times this week, but because the bike was in the shop I wasn't able to get the training in.

Here are the totals for this week (not including the race):

Swim - 3,168 yards
Bike - 0 miles
Run - 5.93 miles

Week 19 - Taper

2008-06-07T06:13:00.002-04:00

Well this was my first week of my two week taper and it's great to be that much closer to race day. This week was pretty productive considering it was my taper week. The downside was that I have no biking miles this week since I was waiting for my replacement aerobars and then dropping the bike off at the shop to get them installed. The good thing is I'll have the bike back in time for the race and that is all that counts. I was also able to get in a long run of 10.2 miles, even though it was a littler slower (a 6:40 per mile pace) than my normal training pace (6:09 per mile pace), it was still great to get out for my 1st long run since my half marathon in April.

Here are tht totals for Week 19:

Swim - 7,084 yards
Bike - 0 miles
Run - 21.46 miles

Week 18 - Recap

2008-05-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

Well Week 18 was eventful as you could tell from my previous post. This week was also my first open water swim in Stiles Pond in Boxford, MA. The open water swim had to have been the coldest swim I've ever been on. We were told the water temperature was 62 degrees, but it felt more like 52! I'll be looking forward to Week 19 and 20 with my 2 week taper for my 1st Half Ironman race on June 8th, Mooseman. Since I wasn't able to get my 60 mile ride in, my bike mileage is low this week. My running mileage is also low this week since I've been dealing with some achilles tendon tightness and soreness/tenderness. I was able to make it to the Orthopedic doctor on Thursday, May 22 and he told me that as long as I stretch it before and after my workouts and ice it after, I should be fine for my half. He told me that I'm just generally tight and that if I have tight hamstrings, then that will result in trouble with my achilles tendons. Along with stretching them out twice a day I was also taking ibuprofen for a few days to relieve any inflammation. As of this post, I'm back to my normal running and my achilles are much better. I'm back to the foam roller for my achilles tendons and since I'm using the roller again, I figured I should roll out my IT bands even though I haven't had any trouble with them for quite come time.

Here are the totals for Week 18:

Swim - 5,850 yards
Bike - 56.12 miles
Run - 12.68 miles

Memorial Day Weekend - 60 mile ride....

2008-05-28T21:20:00.000-04:00

Well, as I wrote about in my last post I was supposed to ride 60 miles this past weekend. I woke up on Saturday morning and meet up with TriFury for the scheduled 7:30am group ride at the Herman Youth Center in N. Andover, MA. I got there a little early at 7am, so that I could stretch out and pound my can of Monster Khaos for my ride. After stretching out, I felt great and the weather was turning out to be better than expected. The group ride started out a little after 7:30am and we were off. I took an early lead from the group and ended up pulling away from the group and was about 4-5 minutes ahead of the person behind me. I was having a great ride and I was averaging 21 mph. I made it 25 miles in and the worst happened......My new Visiontech TriMax Plus Flat aerobars ended up breaking. My left aerobar extension ended up snapping off causing me to loose control of the bike. The good thing was that I wasn't around anyone else. After loosing control of my bike going just over 20 mph, I veered off the road to the right, went up about a 4 foot embankment, which ended up slowing me down a bit. Once I was up the embankment I ended up flipping head over heals off the handlebars and rolled down the 4 foot embankment with the bike crashing on top of me in the middle of the road. Luckily, I crashed in front of someones house and they came running out to see if I was okay. Apparently, they called out after I crashed, but I was so concerned about how I was and taking an inventory of what happened to me and what happened to the bike that I didn't even hear them. All and all the only damage to the bike was the aerobars and everything else was fine. I ended up with a bruise the size of bike pedal on my left calf and a couple of cuts on my left knee and some road rash on my butt. I was happy that the crash wasn't that bad since things could have ended up much worse. I'd like to thank the good samaritan, whose house I crashed in front of, who gave me a ride back to my car, which was only 2 miles away after the whole incident. After getting back to my car I called it a day and went home to run 6 miles later that afternoon without incident.

Here are some pictures of what happened to the bike below.

Week 16 & 17 - Recap

2008-05-21T18:49:00.002-04:00

Week 16 was a recovery week and I was able to get 2 - 20 mile rides in, not including my JCC race on Mother's Day. As of this post, I still have yet to get in a 50 - 60 mile bike ride, which will be happening this coming Memorial Day weekend. There isn't really anything significant to report for Week 16 other than the JCC Sprint Tri that I posted about previously.

Here are my totals for Week 16;

Swim - 3,716 yards
Bike - 53.24 miles
Run - 15.6 miles

Week 17 was a complete disaster! Come Monday, May 12, I was fine when I went to work and as the day went on I seemed to feel worse and worse. I ended up taking the whole week off from training since I was sick with a bad head cold and running a fever over a few of the days last week. This really through a loop in my training plan since this week was my 2nd weak in the peak phase and I was hoping to get in my long ride and long run in this week. To finish off the week I decided to get a professional massage and ever since the massage I've been dealing with some morning stiffness in my right Achilles tendon. Hopefully this won't continue to bother me and I'll be able to continue my training for Week 18. I'll write more about this after I see the doctor this Friday, May 23.

Here are my totals for Week 17:

Swim, Bike, Run - ZERO

JCC Triathlon by the Sea - 2008 Race Report

2008-05-11T19:06:00.011-04:00

Official Results - 51:30, 3rd Overall out of 248, 1st M25-29 out of 10

Pre-Race: The day before Jess and I decided to drive the course, since someone from TriFury was kinda enough to send out a pre-race report on the road conditions, but I wanted to check them out for myself. Sure enough the roads were full of potholes and there were alot of turns. There were a couple of areas that were tricky if there wasn't anyone directing. The run also consisted of alot of turns, but was pretty flat except for one hill about 3/4 of a mile in. The swim was going to be interesting as well since it was a pool start. It started out that you swam down the first lane and then the next 4 lanes you swam both up and down and then the last lane you swam down and exited out the door and ran out to the transition area.

Well the night before we were in bed early at 9pm and up at 4:30am so we could be there by 6:30am to check-in and get my transition area set-up. I slept great for about 4 hours and didn't have the race on my mind at all since I've done a few of these last year. Then for some reason I woke up at about midnight and from then on I was having nightmares that I screwed up the swim and only did half the distance. Then, the next 2 dreams consisted of getting lost and taking the wrong turn and the last one being that I crashed hitting a huge pothole. My last dream then consisted that I took a wrong turn on the run. Needless to say after all these dreams last night I was a little nervous and anxious this morning.

Swim: 3:45, 6th OA, 1st AG

Well the swim was based on the seeded time that you had to submit when you registered for the race. The good thing was that I originally submitted a slower time of 4:30 and then changed it to 4:10, but needless to say that was to slow as well. Our race numbers were based on when we would be starting the swim. I was number 66 and I didn't enter the water for some time. They started people off with a 15 second gap per person so that you hopefully wouldn't have to pass anyone. Well sure enough, I caught the girl in front of me in the 2nd lane and then got tied up behind 2 people in the 3rd lane. I was able to pass them in the 2nd to last lane, but it cost me about 15-20 seconds if not more having to slow down behind them so that I could safely pass them since I had to pass them while people were swimming at me. I was also able to catch someone in the last lane as well. My enter to exit time from the pool was 3:38, but because the timing mat was so far from the pool, my official time was 3:45.

Bike: 31:08 (20.2 mph) 11th OA, 1st AG

I was worried how I was going to make out on the bike, not because of mileage, but because of the weather. It was cold this morning, but by the time I got out of the pool and back outside it wasn't that bad. I ended up wearing my tri top for the swim and I wasn't sure if that was going to cost me and leave me cold on the bike. Sure enough it was perfect on the bike with only my feet getting cold. My overall average speed is slow because this includes my transition time to my run. I ended up averaging 22.0mph according to my bike computer and finished the bike in 28:38. My transition time took me awhile because for some reason I tried to run with my aero helmet on, which needless to say, was pretty funny!

Run: 16:38 (5:33), 1st OA, 1st AG

Running has been my strong point, since this is the background I came from before starting triathlons. I had no idea I was going to dominate the run and have the fastest run of the day by almost a minute. (Beating elite triathlete Dean Phillips.) The run was mostly flat with only 1 hill at the 3/4 mile mark. This was where I caught alot of people before hitting the finish line. The only problem I had during the run was some cramping because instead of bringing water with me on bike, I brought with me my Cytomax drink. The cramps weren't bad enough to slow me down though.

All and all it was an awesome race since I was able to use some of my new gear. This was the first race that I was able to try out my new Vision Tech TriMax Plus Flat aerobars and the 2nd time I was able to use my Sidi T-1 shoes and my new Guru Advantage 2 Helmet. With it being Mother's Day, my parents were able to make it to the race today, which was great! Then afterwards the Ellis's were able to finally meet Jess's Parent's for the first time. It was a good day for racing and a great Mother's day for both Mom's.

Week 15 - Peak Phase

2008-05-08T18:56:00.003-04:00

Week 15 is my first week of my peak phase and with next week being a recovery it was great to get through this week. I wasn't able to get in as much running or biking as I'd like this past week, but it's great knowing how far I've come with my training and what great shape I'm in right now. Despite my low biking mileage I still feel comfortable on the 30 mile rides, like I could go much longer, even though I still have yet to go on a 60 mile ride, I may have to wait till Week 17 to get in a long run and a long ride. I can't believe that Mooseman is only 5 weeks away. As I get closer to the actual event I find myself thinking about how the race will go and how I don't feel ready despite all the training I have done. What worries me the most is my actual race day nutrition. Thanks to Scott DeWire for some tips, I think I might be in good shape, but we'll have to see.

Here are my totals for Week 15:

Swim - 7,832 yards
Bike - 30.69 miles
Run - 11.78 miles

Week 14 - Recap

2008-04-27T21:17:00.003-04:00

Week 14 had some great training weather here in New England with the weather in the 70's and 80's this week. I was able to get in some great bike miles this week. Also, for the first time on Thursday I was able to ride with a group that leaves from my gym at 6am. The group ride was a little too early for me because I'm not the one that likes to get up that early to workout. We rode with about 12 guys and we did a 30 mile loop and we ended up averaging 21.4 mph, which was great for me! I was also able to go for another group ride this past Saturday with my fellow TriFury group. We had a great turnout of about 25 riders, but it didn't take long for things to thin out with myself and another local great triathlete, Thor Kirleis to take off on our own. The course for the group ride is well marked on the roads and we were told that it was a 30 mile ride, but it ended up being a 32.6 mile ride and we averaged 20.9 mph. All and all it was another great week for bike mileage, but my running mileage again was low.

Here are the totals for Week 14:

Swim - 7,282 yards
Bike - 81.66 miles
Run - 10.61 miles

Week 13 - Recap & Bike Fit

2008-04-27T17:42:00.003-04:00

Well the recap of Week 13 is a week past due. Between work, racing & my long weekends spending time with my lovely girlfriend, it doesn't leave me much time to post, so here I am catching up. Week 13 was a decent week considering I was able to add more miles to the bike this week, but I ended up slacking on the running. On Friday, April 18th I was able to schedule a professional bike fit at The Cycleloft in Burlington, MA. It was great to finally get dialed in and learn the process of a bike fit. The bike fit started by first analyzing my current setup. After looking at my current setup it was apparently very unorthodox. I was to far forward on my bike and my bike cleats weren't in the correct position. The bike fit ended up taking about 2 hours, but afterwards I couldn't believe the difference. Joel, the bike fit professional, made adjusts to my cleats on both my race and training shoes, adjusted the saddle and post to the correct height and then lowered my aerobars to give me a pretty basic tri-bike setup. I was also given a set of orthotics for my bike shoes. Come to find out it’s not normal to have your knees hit the middle tube on the bike. This was happening because from my thigh to my knees, they go inwards and then my tibia's bow out. The orthotics fix this problem almost making my legs straight when I peddle and relieving a lot of stress that I had been feeling on my IT band. I was able to test out the bike fit I had received on Friday in the Wrentham Duathlon on Sunday, April 20th.

Here are the totals for Week 13:

Swim - 7,282 yards
Bike - 37.1 miles
Run - 9.94 miles

Wrentham Duathlon - Run 3 / Bike 11 / Run 2

2008-04-21T09:14:00.009-04:00

This was a race I had put on my race calendar during the winter when I was planning out my season, but didn’t sign up for because I wasn’t sure what the weather would bring considering it was an early spring race. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to race this one or not until the night before.

The weather for race day was suppose to be in the mid 40's to lower 50's with the race starting at 8:30. When Jess and I arrived it was cloudy and about 43 degrees. It was going to be great running weather, but I knew it was going to be a chilly bike leg. By the time I finished warming up and setting up my transition area the sun was out and it had warmed up to maybe 50 degrees.

Run - 3 miles - 16:43 (5:34 per mile pace)

The first run went great and it felt like a relaxing pace. I didn't want to take the first run to hard because I wanted to save whatever I had left for bike leg since I haven't been able to put much time in on the bike. The run was pretty flat with no hills and was a 3 mile loop around the Wrentham Fairgrounds. I finished the first run 4th overall and 2nd in my age group. As soon as I went into the transition I was passed by a few people because I hadn't switched my running shoes over with the quick laces. This transition was also setup in the grass and it was soaked from the morning dew. My plan was to try and start the bike leg with my bike shoes clipped in on the bike and then tighten them up once I was going on the bike. I wasn't able to do this since we started on grass so I ended up putting on my bike shoes in the transition area and ran my bike out to the road.

Bike - 11 miles - actual -10.93 miles - 31:38 (20.7 mph)

Well I knew that this was going to be my weakest leg of the duathlon since I haven't put enough time in the saddle training for my half ironman. Well sure enough I was right. The course wasn't that hilly, but had some rolling hills, which I would have to say that I kinda struggled with. It didn't take long for me to start getting passed on the bike leg. I think I ended up getting passed by about 12 people on the bike leg, which put about 16 people ahead of me coming into the second run. This transition was done exactly how I wanted to do it. I ended up unstrapping my bike shoes and leaving them clipped into the pedals and pedaling with my feet on top of my bike shoes. As I approached the dismount area I was able to ride in and jump off and start running with my bike. This was a much quicker transition and was able to get my running shoes back on allot quicker even though I still had to mess with laces.

Run - 2 miles - 11:51 (5:55 per mile pace)

The last run wasn't to bad, but my legs could feel it from the bike leg. I'd have to say that they didn't feel like they did the first time I ever did a bike to run transition. My legs are getting use to the bike to run transition but I do need to spend more time doing this. This run was flat as well with a 2 mile loop going around the Wrentham Fairgrounds as well with no hills.

Finish

I was able to pass 2 people on the run to finish 14th overall and 4th in my age group with a final time of 1:00.14. I wasn't sure how I was going to finish as far as time or place considering I hadn't really examined the results from the previous year so I was happy that I finished in just over an hour. It was also great that my Aunt Joyce who lives about 20 minutes away was able to show up and be part of the cheerleader / support group and kept Jess company during the race. Also, as a I side note, Jess and Joyce said that I had definitely finished in the top 10 after the race so I was excited to find this out. So after waiting for the race director to post race results I found out that I wasn't even in the final results. Well, come to find out they weren't able to download the actual results since the cord that connects to their laptop wasn't working so they had to resort to manual timing. After talking to the race director and giving the my time I ended up placing 16th overall and 5th in my age group. I was definitely a little disappointed since this would be the first race of the season that I wouldn't come away with any hardware or prizes. Well we ended up sticking around for the awards ceremony for the 1st and 2nd place for every age group and then left. After we got home and checked the results online I had found out that I had actually done much better than I had originally thought.

All and all it was a great race considering the SNAFU with the results. It was also a good indicator that I need to put more time in the saddle to get ready for my half.

Week 12 - Rest & Recovery

2008-04-13T20:07:00.004-04:00

Well this past week was the best recovery week I've ever had. I've been finding that even on my recovery weeks I've still been working out at the same intensity as my normal weeks, which in turn has started to burn me out my first week back after a recovery week. So this time around I decided not to workout as much. I also took some time off this week since I really wanted to rest up my legs for next weeks workouts since a week from today I had run a half marathon PR. This week consisted of three (3) days off from training, three swim days, 1 running day and 1 biking day. Here are the totals for Week 12:

Swimming - 3,366 yards
Biking - 1:36 (28.5 miles)
Running - 2.85 miles

Week 11

2008-04-08T20:45:00.003-04:00

After this weekends great half marathon performance I figured as part of my Week 11 recap I might share some some insight as to how I have improved my performance. I’ve left certain things out of my blog in the previous weeks, but for the last 4 weeks I’ve been doing 1 track session a week. Each week was a little different, but it mostly consisted up to about 12 – 200 meter repeats with a 200 meter jog between or up to 10 – 400 meter repeats with a 2 minute rest between each one. I think I can safely say this paid great dividends in greatly improving my times.

This past week consisted of one running speed work session and then two short runs, run at a 6:30 pace. I also was able to get outside twice last week on the bike, which was great. The downside to it was that by the time I got home from work I was limited because of daylight, but I managed some great hill repeats one day and one steady ride. Swimming consisted of a Time Trial on Friday of 1,650 yards, which I was able to complete in 24:16, which I’m not sure if that’s great or not. If I compare it to my last Swim Time Trial back in Week 6, I was only 2 seconds slower at the half mile mark, which isn’t to bad. Week 6 was a 1,000 yard time trial that I completed in 14:42. I think I was slower this time around only because I stopped lifting twice a week and have been focusing on just training, but from the looks of it I may have to start lifting again just to keep my muscle base up for the swimming.

All and all I can’t complain with a great break through performance in the Half Marathon this past Sunday. Here are the totals for Week 11:

Swim - 6,424 yards (3.65 miles)
Bike - 90 minutes
Run - 22.14 miles

Year to Date Totals:

Swim - 62,902 yards (35.74 miles)
Bike - 1,230 minutes
Run - 202.14 miles

Great Bay Half Marathon

2008-04-07T19:00:00.000-04:00

Prior to race day, Jess and I decided to drive up Saturday and pickup my race number and then drive the race course. I wanted to drive the course because the topography map shown on the race site was set at such a huge scale it was hard to tell how hilly the race actually was, but I also wanted to mentally prepare myself for the race as well. Going into this race I wanted to see if a Personal Record (PR) was attainable.

With course map in hand, Jess and I started driving the course and at about mile 2.5 to mile 5 the course turned into a packed down sand/gravel road that was loaded with potholes. I was like you have to be kidding, we are running on this? So I stopped to check to see how bad it was to run on and it wasn’t that bad at all. We continued driving and miles 2.5 to 5 were rolling hills with nothing major that had some down hills. Once we got past mile 5 was right where the hills started. It started with a huge downhill into a little valley right to a good size hill right at mile 6 and mile 7. The good thing was that after each hill at mile 6 and 7 was that there was a flat section with little rolling hills, which made for a great recovery from the two hills. The great part of the race was going from miles 8 to 9 since it was mostly downhill. Once we reached mile 9 it was flat all the way to the home stretch with the exception of a small hill at mile 12.2 or so.

Jess and I arrived race day around 10am, which gave me an hour to the start of the race. I went for a about a 10 to 15 minute warm-up run and then came back and stretched out. While stretching out my shin splints were bothering me and I was still considering whether or not I was going to try and race in my racing flats or my regular training shoes. I ended up racing in my racing flats and right up to the start I was wondering how much of a good idea this was going to be since I’ve never run a half marathon in racing flats. Needless to say after stretching out I seemed to be okay. Right before the start I went for another 10 minute warm-up run to make sure I was ready to go and then headed for the Starting Line.
I lined up right on the Start Line since they started it a 6:00 minute per mile pace. My race strategy going into the race was not a PR because of the hills so I figured I’d still be around a 6:24 per mile pace. The first mile ended up being a 5:58 and it was comfortable. I was also surprised to find myself in the front pack of runners with the exception of two runners who were running the first couple of miles at about a 5:30 per mile pace. At mile 5 things started to thin out and left me with a pack of four runners. It was a great group that I ended up running with and we even ended up talking a little during the race. I stayed behind them because after mile 5 we were running into the wind. I figured, why should I spend my energy to break the wind when I could use them to do it. We ended up running as a pack of 4 right up to mile 12 and that was were everyone started to thin out and head for a strong finish. Since this race was my longest run of the season, I ended up hitting the wall right at the last small hill at about mile 12.2. It wasn’t till I looked at my watch at mile 13 did I realize I was about to set a PR for the half marathon. There was no sprint to the finish for me since my legs were so cramped, but needless to say I was happy when I finished with a time of 1:18.19, which is a 5:59 per mile pace. Once I got through the finish line chute it was great to see Jess smiling and saying, “You beat your old time and I got some great pictures of you!” I ended shattering my Half Marathon PR by 6 minutes! My previous PR for the Half Marathon was 1:24.16 (a 6:24 per mile pace) at the B.A.A Half Marathon that was held on October 7, 2007.

My time was good enough for a 6th place overall finish and I was 1st in my age group by about 9 minutes! After I finished I grabbed a bottle of water and a bottle of Accelerade. Accelerade has become my recovery drink of choice and I almost prefer this over Gatorade. After hitting the recovery tent, Jess and I headed for the gym so I could stretch out. The funniest part was when I entered the gym, the people that had been waiting for their loved ones and friends to finish thought I was the 1st place finisher and started clapping for me! It was great and I didn’t mention I was the 6th finisher. Hahaha! After stretching out we waited for the awards ceremony. The awards were great! I ended up getting a mug and inside was a gift certificate to Margarita’s Restaurant for 2 free dinner entrees and a 50% off gift certificate on any of the Loco Running shoes they offer. (Loco Running was the race organizer who also happens to make shoes and is a running club in NH.) Overall I ended up winning about $100 dollars in gift certificates, not bad for a $40 dollar registration fee!

Overall, I was thrilled, psyched and amazed that I was able to pull off such a great Half Marathon time with only 11 weeks of training under my belt. I can’t wait to see how I make out in my 2nd year of triathlon.

Here were my mile splits from the race:
1 – 5:58
2 – 6:03
3 – 6:00
4 – 6:03
5 – 5:54
6 – 5:55
7 – 5:45 (mostly downhill at this point)
8 – 6:04
9 – 5:54
10 – 5:54
11 – 5:54
12 – 5:57
13 – 6:14

Week 10 - Recap (Half Way Mark)

2008-03-31T20:13:00.003-04:00

Week 10 was back to normal for swimming and running and was disappointing in the bike area yet again. I’ve been sick of riding the trainer inside for the last 9 weeks that I just can’t wait to get outside and ride. Once the weather warms up to Spring like temps, I’ll be outside on the days I’m supposed to bike. I ended up taking three rest days this week since Tuesday and Sunday I didn’t up biking. I did, however, have a great 7 mile run on Wednesday, which I ended up running at a 6:03 pace for a time of 42:38. I’m hoping this is a sign of things to come for my Half Marathon coming up on Sunday, April 6th. I’m also happy to report that I’ve made it to the half way point in the training program! I can’t believe that I’m at the half way point and only have 10 additional weeks left of training before my first Half Ironman. My training plan ends up peaking at Week 17 and then has a 2 week taper prior to race day.

As a side note, my friend Scott DeWire, who lives in North Carolina ended up running a Half Marathon PR despite having chest pains and cramping. Congrats to him! I had to mention it since he happen to beat my Half Marathon PR by 31 seconds. Congrats! My Half Marathon PR is 1:24.16, which I ran on October 7, 2007 at the B.A.A. Half Marathon.

Here are the totals for Week 10.

Swim – 6,732 yards (3.8 miles)
Bike – 30 minutes
Run – 16.31 miles

Week 9 - Nothing to Write Home About..

2008-03-24T19:31:00.003-04:00

Well the title should say it all for Week 9 only because I wasn’t able to swim with my hand being stitched up. I was still able to manage some decent run miles and a little bit of biking, but this week was essentially a rest week. It will be nice to get back into the swing of things after a disappointing Week 9. I can also report that I’m finally healthy! No more IT Band issues and what a great feeling to be running injury free.

Here are the totals for Week 9.

Swim – 0 yards
Bike – 150 minutes
Run – 15.74 miles

Week 8 - Recovery Week Recap

2008-03-18T18:20:00.003-04:00

Week 8 was a great recovery week, but I ended up taking to many recovery days only because I couldn’t get the time in for training this week. For those of you who don’t know I try and get most of my training in during the week so I can spend time with my girlfriend Jess on the weekends since we are so busy during the week.

This past Thursday, March 12th was my birthday and it just so happened that I was able to attend an informational meeting with the nutritionist Nancy Clark. Nancy has worked with many triathletes, runners and players from the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics. I attended this meeting in hopes of learning about pre-race, race day and post race nutrition, but it turned into more of a Q & A of just about everything nutrition related; so much for nutrition information on race day! I did take something away from the meeting, which was that all the training you are doing for your body you are also training your body by what you eat when you train.

Also, this past Saturday was interesting to say the least. I ended up having to drive myself to the ER because while I was washing my dishes, of all things, I ended up slicing my right pinky finger. I ended up with 3 stitches and was told that I couldn't get it wet in the next 2 days. So much for swim workouts in Week 9! Depending on how the week goes I may try and swim or I may not since I really don't want the stitches to pull out.

Aside from the nutrition meeting and the thrill of this past Saturday, my running mileage and bike time is down from what my goals were. Here are my totals for Week 8:

Swim – 5,236 yards (2.97 miles)
Bike – 105 minutes
Run – 10.44 miles

Week 7 - Recap

2008-03-09T21:22:00.003-04:00

Week 7 was my last week of 3 weeks of hard training and what a relief to be entering my second recovery week. I was absolutely tired come Friday. With those that are not familiar, my 20 week training plan is set up with a recovery week every 4th week, which essentially allows the body to recover from the previous hard weeks while still training but doing less miles, yards etc.

My bike time was down from what my training goal should be, but is up from last week which is good. The groin tightness has finally gone away and with 2 weeks left of Physical Therapy my IT band has finally been comfortable/tolerable to run on which has been great. If anyone hasn’t had an IT band injury, it’s more annoying than anything. The IT band starts at your lower back/butt and goes all the way down your leg. My trouble has been on the outside of my knee, which is where the friction point is of the IT Band. When the IT Band is tight it rubs on the bone of the knee causing some pain, but I also noticed that it shortened my stride a little not allowing me to run at my full potential. I can safely say that mine was caused from overtraining and not enough base mileage. As you may recall, this has been bothering me since October and back in October I was racing just about every weekend and hardly training during the week.

Here are my totals from Week 7 below:

Swim - 6,512 yards (3.7 miles)
Bike - 105 minutes
Run - 17.34 miles

Week 6 - Recap

2008-03-03T19:35:00.005-05:00

Well Week 6 was a little disappointing on the bike end, but the swim and run totals were right where they were suppose to be. The week started out great but then come Tuesday my groin injury from the 2006 season decided to act up again and was tight most of week and prevented me from biking all week. As well as my groin tightness and tenderness bothering me my IT band has been tight since the beginning of my training regimen. For those of you that don’t know, 2006 was supposed to be my first triathlon season, but I was on the DL for about 6-7 months with a severely pulled groin injury which took 2 visits a week for 6 months of Physical Therapy to recover from. Since I knew how long it took to recover from that injury I decided that I needed to add a more regimented stretching routine to my training plan. I normally stretch out prior to biking and running and do a few stretches prior to swimming, but I have now begun a stretching and strengthening program that I try to do twice a week. I have also started stretching for about a half hour before and after each run and bike session that I have as well. With this all in place my groin and IT Band were fine by the end of the week and I was able to pull off a great 5K (see post from yesterday).

As a great tip for triathletes and runners alike the best investment you could make is in a foam roller or a foam roller ball. This helped me with my groin injury and is great for rolling out just about every inch of your legs before and/or after a hard run. I picked up my foam roller and ball up at http://www.performbetter.com/

Here are Week 6 totals below:

Swim - 5,616 yards
Bike - 30 minutes (1 lousy session)
Run - 20.95 miles

Kelly's Pace Hare Hop 5K - March 2, 2008

2008-03-02T20:21:00.006-05:00

The race itself was great and as always, Johnny J. Kelly was there to start the race. If you don’t know who Johnny J. Kelly is, he was the 1957 Boston Marathon winner. The reason why I went home for this race was because not only was this the weekend that we were celebrating my mom’s birthday, but also my wonderful girlfriend Jess’s birthday as well. They were actually born on the same day, March 4th! I also scheduled this race in because the last time I competed in this race was back in High School with my fellow track and cross country runners Mike Weckworth and Dave Tetlow. When I was speaking with Dave a few weeks prior, back in Feb he was talking about doing this race and I said lets do it together since we hadn’t raced together since high school as teammates.

(Below - Dave and I warming up prior to the race.)

The weather for the race wasn’t too bad and was about 40 degrees, but the wind was cold, blowing at about 14 mph making it feel like it was in the 30's! Once I was warmed up and ready for the race it wasn't too bad.
My plan for the race was to run it as hard as I could for as long as I could but I was thinking that would be at about a 5:45 per mile pace. Well sure enough, my first mile was a 5:15 split! I was shocked and yes I was very much sucking wind, trying to stay with the lead pack of runners. The lead pack was one 37 year old, me and 2 other 20 something’s. Things quickly thinned out after the 1st mile with the first 3 runners taking off after that. I stayed back in 4th place and let them go since they were running a whole lot faster than me. Also, how could I forget to mention at just over a mile in my left shoe came untied and the thought came to me of how many times does a coach tell you always to check your shoes before a race. I was like, you have to be kidding me, this isn’t happening to me. Well I continued running and didn’t stop to tie my shoe. The good thing was I never lost my shoe and was able to finish with it still on, but barely!

I ended up finishing 4th overall with a very comfortable lead and 3rd in my age group with a total time of 17:19, which was a 5:35 per mile pace! It was exactly how I wanted to run the race! Dave ended up running it very well as well and finished 7th overall in a time of 18:41 which was a 6:02 per mile pace. I’d have to say that he hadn’t been running much at all so he was happy with how he ran.

(Above - Finish Line - 4th overall)

My dad also is trying to make a come back to the running scene since he is still dealing with his Achilles Tendonitis, which I would have to say has been a struggle for him and very frustrating. In the mean time he has taken up biking and swimming to keep in shape with the possibility of maybe, just maybe, making his début in the Triathlon World this year. He was able to run the race as well but as more of a training run than a race since this was his first week back from being on the DL. He ran a little faster than he wanted but still managed a great finish with a time of 24:37, 51st overall and 8th in his age group of 40-49 which was a 7:56 per mile pace.

If you have been following my blog, I had mentioned that Jess was going to run this race as well, but after a tough week of being sick and recovering she was unable to run it.

Week 5 - Recap & Misc.

2008-02-25T21:01:00.006-05:00

This was the first week back after a recovery week last week. Taking advantage of the holiday on Monday I was able to swim 1,800 yards and then go for a nice 10 mile run which I was able to run at a 6:35 pace. It helped that the weather was cooperating Monday with temps in the 50's! Then on Sunday, the last day of the week, I did a great brick workout with an hour on the trainer followed by a 3.22 mile run at a 6:14 pace. On Sunday March 2nd I have the Kelly's Pace 3 mile Hare Hop in CT. Also, this could be Jess's, my girlfriend, debut to road racing! I'll write a post race report on how this race goes and how everyone makes out. All and all it was a great week of training. Here are the totals for this week.

Week 5 Totals:

Swim - 6,094 yards
Bike - 2 hour 35 minutes
Run - 21.41 miles

As a side note to having Jess possibly running her first road race this weekend, she has been a huge supporter and believer in me with my training. Especially in the beginning of this training program I set up. I was ready to quite, but she was the one who told me you'll get through it because this is a goal you want to do. Sure enough she was right! It took some time to get use to the additional training that I wasn't use to and then on top of that having to manage the time we could see each other since we don't quite live together. So instead of seeing each other during the week sometimes and weekends like we use to we have gone to just seeing each other on the weekends. As you can imagine this has taken us sometime to adjust to. All and all I have to give her a lot of credit and I love having her on the sideline watching my races. She's been there for all my triathlons and duathlons cheering for me. So here is a huge thank you and I hope you'll be there for much more.

TriFury Winter Clinic 2 - Feb 17, 2008

2008-02-24T12:44:00.001-05:00

What a great clinic that was put on by TriFury. I was only able to stay for about 2 hours of it. I had a chance to hear Jarrod Shoemaker speak and what an unbelievable triathlete he is at only 25! He was kind enough to share some training tips and racing tips and sure enough I’ve taken them to heart and put the training tips to good use or at least I’ve been trying to make myself more aware of them, such as stroke and body position in the water. Once this New England weather starts to warm up I’ll head outside and start practicing my bike mounts and dismounts for racing so I can hopefully spend less time in transition. I also couldn’t believe that Jarrod was also swimming about 25,000 yards a week, strength training 3 times a week and logging about 70 miles a week +-! I guess it’s completely different when you’re a pro and this sport becomes your full time job. Sure this sounds awesome, but you’d need the sponsorship and the dedication to make it. It was also good to hear that he plans to stay with this sport till 2016 for the next Olympics and then wasn’t sure if he’d switch over to the 70.3 distance like Andy Potts has done. At any rate he’ll be a great athlete to follow and see how he makes out. I wish him the best of luck in the 2008 Olympics.

Week 4 - Recovery

2008-02-17T18:21:00.002-05:00

I had been looking forward to this week since Week 1. What a relaxing week compared to the last 3 weeks. The next 3 weeks will be on the harder side with the introduction of hill climbs on the bike, the increase of my long runs and the increase of yardage and intervals for swimming. Also, look for a post on TriFury Winter Clinic where I had a chance to meet Jarrod Shoemaker.

Week 4 Totals:

Swim -4,664 yards
Bike - 180 minutes
Run - 12 miles

Week 3 Recap

2008-02-15T12:27:00.003-05:00

Yet again another tough and tiring week, but I made it through. Week 4 is something to look forward as this is going to be my first recovery week! My total bike time and running mileage is down from the past 2 weeks due to prior commitments and not having the time to get the training in during the week.

Week 3 Totals:

Swim - 5,698 yards
Bike - 70 minutes
Run - 14.72 miles

Winter Blues....

2008-02-15T11:57:00.001-05:00

Being a New Englander definitely has its ups and downs, but come this time of season, I just can’t wait for the warmer weather to arrive and to finally start swimming and biking outside again. There is nothing more torturous than swimming in the pool and following that black line at bottom of pool or riding your bike on a trainer inside for hours on end. These past few weeks here in Massachusetts have been horrible; snow, sleet, rain and ice all within the same week preventing me from getting my miles in on the road where I really prefer to run rather than on a stationary treadmill at the gym. There is nothing more fulfilling than running outside and exploring areas that have yet to be seen. With that said these past few weeks of training have been tiring, overwhelming and less desirable. So yesterday instead of getting on the trainer at my apartment I decided to do a spin class at the gym yesterday. Talk about a way to mix things up. It was definitely what I needed to hopefully get out of this training slump I seem to be experiencing and hopefully get me back on the road to more worthwhile training. It also hasn’t helped that my IT band has been acting up and preventing me from running at my full potential. My runs have been less than desirable running at a 7:15 + per mile pace which is far from my potential. My training runs are usually done at 6:15 per mile pace + or – depending on the route I run with my race pace much better than that.

On a more positive note, my triathlon group, TriFury, is hosting its 2nd Winter Clinic this Sunday, Feb. 17 in Methuen, MA at the Guest House Suites. Why something to look forward? Jarrod Shoemaker, 2008 USA Olympic Team Qualifier will be stopping by for a speech along with Candy Angle, 2002 World Champion Xterra Triathlete along with some other guest speakers from the area. I’ll fill everyone in on how it went.

The Beginning - Week 1 & 2

2008-02-05T20:50:00.001-05:00

I'm currently in Week 3 of training for my first Half Ironman on June 7th. The first 2 weeks were tough since I've really stepped up my training. I have a long road ahead, but I'm not going to give up. I'm one of those types that likes to get by on the minimum amount of training but I know that in order for myself to finish in a respectable time I'll have to train harder that I'm use to. Being my first Half you think I'd set a realistic goal of just finishing, but I have a hard time doing that since I'm very competitive in nature. With the help of an old high school buddy/runner Scott DeWire and a week by week training guide I was able to come up with what I think is a pretty good training schedule. See below my totals for the last 2 weeks.

Week 1 totals - Swim - 4,900 yards Bike - 105 minutes Run - 15.1 miles
Week 2 totals - Swim - 5,500 yards Bike - 110 minutes Run - 22.4 miles