The water is cold
This gray September morning
Suck it up and swim a mile
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Got A Smoke?
Out on my usual Tuesday morning run, I had an unusual thing happen. I was running down the Sunset Strip. It was still dark and a homeless woman approached me and said, "do you happen to have a cigarette?" It is certainly an odd thing to ask a runner, and normally I would think it was a joke, but she seemed so sincere. When I run on Saturday mornings with the L.A. Leggers, as we run through Venice Beach, inevitably one of the local homeless will ask the group if anybody has a smoke. The first time it was funny, the twenty fifth time, it is old. The woman this morning asked as if she thought there was a chance that I would stop, reach into my running shorts, pull out a smoke and then go finish my run.
Monday, September 29, 2008
No Oceanside Half Ironman In 2009
I have been so focused on training for the Ironman Arizona that I have not done any planning beyond November 23. Unfortunately, I found out that Ironman California 70.3 sold out today. I really wanted to do this race again, but I wanted to finish the full Ironman first. Oh well. There will be other races.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
One More Race On The Calander
I added the Manhattan Beach 10k to my race calendar. The Assistant Pastor of my church and his wife are doing it and encouraged me to do the same. It will be fun running with them, although I have the feeling I will be actually running quite a bit behind them.
A Full Day Of Training
I took the day off from work on Friday. I will be doing this every other week until Ironman Arizona. I swam two miles in the VNSO pool and then headed out for a sixty mile ride. I need some place to go and so I headed down to Manhattan Beach from Van Nuys. The Assistant Pastor and his wife from my church are running in the Manhattan Beach 10k next Saturday and asked me to do it also. The L.A. Leggers are going to be doing five miles, so a 10k race would be perfect. It is too late to sign up online or by mail, but I could still do so at Village Runners in Manhattan Beach.
From the valley, the best way to get there is over the Sepulveda pass. Going south it was a challenging, but enjoyable climb with a fun descent. Once Sepulved goes south of Santa Monica Blvd. it becomes a lot less bicycle friendly. There is no longer a bike lane and the road is considerably rougher. I knew there was an entrance to the Ballona Creek bike path from Sepulveda and so I decided to just tough it out until then. It was quite nice to get off of the street and onto a protected bike path.
On weekday mornings the bike path is almost deserted. The only bad part about that is that there are hazards I have never seen when it is busier. On the west end of the bike path, when it parallels the marina, I noticed a seagull fly up over the path and drop something out of its beak. It then flew down and started eating that thing. As I got closer, I realized it was a mussel. It dropped the shell to break it open and then ate it. I witnessed this a couple of other times and noticed that the bike path was littered with broken mussel shells. Those could cause a flat or a wreck or both. When there bike path is busier the sea gulls don't do this.
On weekends I don't take the beach portion of the bike path because it is too crowned and sandy. It is actually safer to ride in the street. But I figured on an autumn weekday there couldn't be too much activity on the beach bike path, so I took that to the South Bay. When I got to the Manhattan Beach pier I headed inland and went to Village Runners to sign up to the Manhattan Beach 10k.
I was at almost exactly thirty miles, so I headed back. The ride north up the Sepulveda pass is a lot harder than the ride south. It is not as steep, but it is a lot longer. The traffic was heavier than when I came south and the bike lane on the north side seems to disappear at various spots. It was kind of a long slog. When I finally got to the top it was exciting to head down the other side. I ended up using the car lane instead of the bike lane because the bike lane is so full of debris that it is unsafe.
I finally got back to where my car was parked at the VNSO pool and did a quick, actually a very slow, run around the park. About 1.3 miles. I just wanted to run after a long bike ride. All in all, not a bad day of training.
I ran ten miles with the L.A. Leggers this morning and after a little rest, I will do sixty on the bike this afternoon.
Soon, soon!
I saw Iron Monica while running with the L.A. Leggers this morning. I asked her when she was going to finisher her race report from Ironman Brazil. She said she would get it done before I finished mine. I have 57 days to go until Ironman Arizona and it may take me three or four days to write my report. I'll look forward to the conclusion of hers by Thanksgiving.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Flat On A Hill In Tujunga
Ironman Arizona is almost exactly two months away. I see the numbers on the countdown clock on this blog getting frighteningly small. It is definitely time to increase the time and intensity of training. Starting next Friday, I will be taking every other Friday off of work to spend three solid days doing nothing but concentrating on my training.
This weekend was not too bad. I ran ten miles with the L.A. Leggers on Saturday morning. I then followed that up with a sixty mile bike ride into Glendale and Pasadena. I chose a route with the help of the MTA Bike Map. It was quite useful, but I decided to take Griffith Park Blvd. from Los Feliz to get into Hollywood and discovered a bike lane that was in such bad shape that I ended up riding in the street instead.
On Sunday I swam a mile with a couple of other L.A. Tri Club members at Ocean Park, went to church and then met up with Paul Imellezzeri of the Giving It A Tri blog at the Rose Bowl for some riding.
After a couple of laps around the Rose Bowl we headed in a similar direction that I took last week. But instead of heading back to Glendale, we headed north from Montrose and eventually found our way to Foothill Blvd. The plan was to hook up with a road that Paul knew about that would take us up through the mountains and back to Pasadena. Unfortunately, I developed a flat. It wasn't all the way flat, obviously a slow leak. I decided to test how slow and inflate my tire with a CO2 cartridge. I had three on hand, so if it didn't work, what the heck. After a mile or so we were headed down a hill into Tujunga. It was the sort of down hill that I usually like, but I could feel my rear tire getting squirrelly, and I didn't feel safe going too fast. We ended up pulling into a gas station and I knew I had to change my tube.
I have never actually had to change the tube in my rear tire. It is not so different from the front, but it is a little more difficult. I did discover that one of the CO2 cartridges I had was spent, so after inflating my tire, I didn't have any others. Paul didn't have any with him and so we decided not to go into the mountains. It is out of cell phone range and with no way to change a flat we felt it was best to head back.
The plan was to do forty miles, but we ended up doing thirty with a lot of hills, that is almost as good. I got a couple of hours of saddle time and it was close enough to the goal.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Trying To Find The Time To Train.
Saturday was a good training day, Sunday was one of those, "best laid plans" sort of days. I ran eight miles with the L.A. Leggers on Saturday morning. The only hitch was that I realized I forgot my knee brace as I was walking to the meeting area. At that point I wasn't going to drive back to West Hollywood to get it, so I just figured that if my knee was hurting too much, I would stop. The odd thing was that it didn't hurt at all while I was running, but as soon as we took our walking breaks, I could feel it. I assumed I would pay for it later in the day, but my knee really felt pretty good all day.
The second part of the training plan for Saturday was to ride sixty miles. Not a problem. I did find myself on Venice Blvd. in Culver City near the end of my ride. I was near where my former, just for fun, hardly ever play a gig, cover band used to rehearse on Saturday afternoons. I rode by the place and saw that the Poobah's car was there, so obviously they were playing. I stopped in to say hello. They sounded pretty good and where actually rehearsing for a rare gig. I'll go see them on September 27 in the parking lot of the same rehearsal studio. There will also be free pizza and beer!
Sunday didn't go quite as smoothly. I agreed to play in the band at church. I realize that I am going to have to cut this out between now and Ironman Arizona, but this was to be one last time. We were to rehearse Saturday afternoon. The service didn't start until 11:00, so I figured I could do a long swim in the morning and forty miles after church. At the last minute the Saturday rehearsal was cancelled, and we were to rehearse at 8:30 am before the first, more traditional, service. That kind of precluded an ocean swim because church is in Glendale. As it turns out, the sound guy was late and we were only able to half run through some of the songs anyway. We played and it sounded okay. Although lots of people said it sounded good.
I brought my bike to church and figured I would ride from there, not wasting any time driving to somewhere else to ride. I headed to Pasadena and took a lap around the Rose Bowl. I then headed north on Linda Vista Avenue, passing many nice ranch style and craftsman houses. As I rode further up the hill, the houses turned into very stately mansions. Close to the top of the hill I passed another cyclist (a fairly rare occasion going up a hill), and came to a fork in the road. I waited for the guy I just passed and asked him where the two roads led. One went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada-Flintridge and down to Montrose and finally to Glendale. That sounded good to me since that is where I was ultimately headed. By the time I hooked up with Verdugo Avenue, I had done considerable climbing and it was almost all down hill from there.
In all I got my forty mile ride in, but not my swim. I think I will forego my planned rest day Monday and swim
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
L.A. Triathlon 2008 3:31:12
This was the third year that I have raced in the L.A. Triathlon. It is the first Triathlon I ever did and so it is sort of special to me. The first two times I did the sprint version. The first year because even the idea of running three miles was a little scary and the second year because I wanted to beat my time from the first year. Goal accomplished. This year I did the Olympic distance race. Every race I have done this season is really just part of training for Ironman Arizona in November. So, as I have told myself each time before the start of the race, "this is just a training day."
After the final turn toward the Staples Center I could see the finish line. I picked up the pace for a strong finish and was pleased to be done. A finishers medal was put around by neck and I was handed a couple of cold, wet towels. They felt really good. The Great Magnetic Wife was there to greet me and she was excited that she finally got a picture of me finishing. My total run time was 1:13:03. Again, not great, but I know I could finish the Ironman marathon in the seven hours allotted. Overall, it was a good training day.
One of the reasons I was looking forward to moving to the Olympic length race was that I would start earlier. The sprint race waves always go off last. However, the last of the Olympic waves this year was men 45 and older. D'oh! Oh well, I would go a little earlier. My wave was scheduled to start at 8:05. As is usual at the L.A Triathlon, the waves were not all starting on time. The wave before us went off at about 8:10 and we gathered in the starting shoot and figured on a five minute wait before our start. About fifteen minutes later we were still waiting. There was no explanation. The Great Magnetic Wife, who was waiting to watch the start, later told me that she had heard an official say that there were four hundred people in the water and they wanted to wait for more athletes to get out of the water before they started us. We finally started at about 8:27.
The swim, unlike a couple of other recent triathlon swims was rather uneventful. I started at the back of the pack just swam my pace. Fortunately the waves in the ocean weren't as big as they have been at the last two L.A. Triathlons, but the swells bigger than I am used to when I swim at Santa Monica. We swam out beyond a big buoy and turned south towards the Venice Pier. This was a nice sighting point and I think I was able to swim a fairly straight line before the turn around. I have often questioned my sighting skills while swimming in open water and often seem to take a circuitous route. Well, no problem going out because it was very easy to use the Venice Pier as a sighting point, but coming back, it was hazy enough that there was nothing identifiable on the horizon on which to sight. So, I felt as if I swam a little further than I had to as I was struggling to see the buoys. The nice thing about being in the last wave is that no one from the following wave, or the wave after that, or the wave after that passes me by. Because of the huge time gap between the previous wave and ours, I don't think I passed anybody from an earlier wave, but I did manage to pass some athletes from the sprint waves.
Swim time: 41:11. At that pace, I would do a 1:45 Ironman swim time. Not great, or even that good, but certainly well before the cutoff. The swim at Tempe Town Lake should be a lot easier: flat water, no currents.
Being a slow swimmer does make it easier to find one's bike. Always looking on the bright side. My transition time was a reasonable 4:40.
The bike course heads east on Venice Blvd. It is wide and flat and there is usually a bit of a tail wind from the ocean. However, on the morning of the triathlon, there didn't seem to be any tail wind. Not that there was a head wind, just no wind. So I wasn't able to go quite as fast as I expected. I did seem to pass a lot more people that passed me. That is always an ego boost. The second half of the course was changed this year. It becomes quite hilly. So, I played my usual cat-and-mouse with a few riders: they would pass me going up the hills and I would pass them going down. When going into downtown, there is one very steep hill going up 1st Street and a scary steep descent going down Grand Ave. Of course the thought that I was going to have to run up that that Grand Ave. hill twice was also a little scary. This has always been a part of the course, so I knew about it, but it seems to get steeper every year.
My bike time was 1:27:27. At that rate I would finish the Ironman bike course in about 6:40. Of course I would probably be a little slower over 112 miles, so even if you add an hour to that, I would come in well under the cutoff.
T2 was 4:53. The first time in this particular race that I have done T1 faster than T2. It had something to do with finding my rack space and t2 bag. As there is a great advantage being slow out of the water in finding your bike. In a T2 that I have never been in before, there is great disadvantage to being slow and trying to find your space and waiting T2 bag. When I finally did, the other racers had left no room, and so I had to move some bike over to fit mine in. I'm sure I lost at least a minute doing all of this. I just have to keep telling myself, "it's just a training day, it's just a training day."
I drank a lot of water in transition and so when I got to the first water station, which was less than a half a mile into the run, I did not take any. This turned out to be a mistake because the water station at the turn-around, after climbing that gnarly hill on Grand Ave. was out of water when I got there. They assured me they were getting more. At least the next part of the run was down hill. There was a beer garden waiting for me when I finished, and probably because I was quite thirsty, not having hydrated for a while, I really started craving beer. If they had it on the course, I would have had some. I walked slowly through the next water station and grabbed anything that anyone had, water, gatorade, it didn't matter, bring it on.
After a dozen or so of these things, The Great Magnetic Wife has figured out where to move around to see me run by and take pictures. She was at the bottom near the second turn around, and was probably disappointed when I told her that I had another loop instead of heading for the finish.
I had been playing a little bit of cat-and-mouse with another L.A. Tri Club member named Daniel. We were both doing the run-walk method and panting, "Go L.A." as we passed each other. Early into the second loop we got in sync and ran together for a while. Daniel told me that he has type 2 diabetes and was wearing an insulin pump. He said he can't wear it during the swim, but otherwise it is with him. He has to very closely monitor his nutrition during a triathlon. If I screw up my nutritional intake, I face the possibility of bonking, but for Daniel the consequences could be much more serious. When we got to the big hill on Grand I started to walk, but Daniel said that he was just starting to get his rhythm and so he ran up the hill. I never caught him and except for passing him after he had already turned around at the top of the hill, I didn't see him again until we both collected our bikes.
After I turned around at the top of the hill I started passing a guy who had a very peculiar gait. As I was passing him, he panted, "remind me to never do this again." I said he would be glad he did it after it was finished. I ran with him for a couple of minutes and he told me that he had Parkinson's. That explained the unusual gait. He was doing the sprint, and clearly struggling, but he was going to finish and I really admire him for doing so. Whatever little problems I have, I am certainly grateful and blessed with good heath.
I was still craving that beer and went almost immediately to the beer garden and had an MGD 64. It was cold, but it really wasn't very good. I finished it, but instead of having another, I sought out cold water.
The next day I was not sore at all. This is good. I did rest on Monday, but went back to a very heavy training schedule on Tuesday.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Riding The Course
The plan for the day was to get a few hours of real training, but not to push too hard. I am racing the L.A. Triathlon tomorrow and even though I consider it just another training day with my eye always on Ironman Arizona, I do want to finish in a decent time.
I started my day by running seven miles with the L.A. Leggers. My usual pace group is 11.5 miles per minute, but today I decided to take it really easy and run with the thirteens. It is still a run, but it was easier than the eleven fives. I ran up front with the pace leader and I think I might have pushed the pace a bit. We came in at about 12.5 minutes per mile. Oh well, everyone seemed to do it pretty well. Everyone looked good. They were excited that they did seven miles at a faster pace than normal.
The Great Magnetic Wife and I went to the L.A. Triathlon Expo. Picked up my race pack and dropped off my T2 bag. The L.A. Triathlon, being a point to point race has two transition areas and so all the racers have to prepare their run transition bags and drop them off at the expo. the organizers then set them up at the bike-to-run transition. That transition is always a little odd, because you have to find your spot based on your race number. Now, I can count pretty well, so it's not that hard, but it is harder than a one transition area race. The first transition is always a little slow also, because you have to completely pack your transition bag before you take off on the bike. The organizers then collect your T1 bag and drive it to the finish. We got large goody bags of energy bars and drinks and all kinds of sponsors knick-knacks. The Great Magnetic Wife was quite excited when she picked up a band-aid dispenser from the Kaiser-Permenente booth.
From the expo I rode the bike course. It has changed this year and not for the better in my opinion. It used to go from Venice into Mid-Wilshire to Hollywood and then Downtown. Now, instead of going north on Highland Ave and into Hollywood, it continues east on 6th Street through Korea Town and some pretty rough areas around MacArthur Park. It then goes north on Alvarado and eventually does a little loop on Sunset before heading Downtown. A good portion of 6th Street and Alvarado are in bad shape. It was particularly rough today with all of the traffic. The other thing about riding a bike on crowded streets in a rough part of town is that there are a lot a vehicles that probably couldn't pass a smog inspection and are spewing nasty exhaust right next to you. It will be a lot better during the race when the streets are closed to traffic.
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