Saturday, October 27, 2012

Gomer Davis Pumpkin Chase 5K

Race: 5K run
Date: October 27, 2012
Location: Wilmerding, Pa.
Time: 25:24
Overall Rank: 14 out of XX
Age Group Rank: 4 out of X
Results:

My goal today was to beat my time from last year. I solidly did so. Last year I ran this in 27:37. Today I ran it in 25:24. How about that?! I also moved up one position in the rankings--4th place in the men's 30-39 age group (last year I was 5th). Congrats to my friend Dan who got a medal for placing 3rd in our age group. A good time was had by all.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: October 21, 2012
Location: Hollidaysburg, Pa
I competed in 4 events and I started strong but ended with some disappointment.

Event #1: 100-yard freestyle
Time: 1:07.80
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My first event was the 100-yard freestyle. I swam this in 1:07.80, which is a new personal best (old record was 1:09). I swam next to a work colleague of mine who I didn't know was going to be there until I saw him. What fun it was to discover something new about somebody who you have worked with for a year. Neiether of us knew that the other person was a swimmer!

Event #2: 100-yard breaststroke
Time: 1:25.29
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
My second event was the 100-yard breaststroke and I finished in 1:25.29, which beat my old personal best of 1:27. The consesus of my friends is that my turns and pull-outs still need a lot of work; otherwise, my stroke is fast. I was in lane 6 today, so I was swimming with folks who were faster than I. So I pushed myself hard on this swim. My quads were burning afterward.

Event #3: 50-yard freestyle
Time: 30.45
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
My third event was the 50-yard freestyle. I swam this in 30.45 seconds. This is my second-fastest time ever, and I'm happy with it. I had almost no time to rest between this and the previous event and I was still a little out of breath as I mounted the starting block. I am sure that in a more rested state I could have taken this swim down to the sub-30 range. My quads were burning more at the end of this swim.

Event #4: 500-yard freestyle
Time: 7:27.35
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My last event was more than 30 min later. It was the 500-yard freestyle. I finished in 7:27.35, which is just a fraction of a second faster than my previous best time, set in March 2012. So on the one hand I should be pleased that I had another top performance, but on the other hand, with a whole summer to improve, I am disappointed I did not chop 10 seconds off my previous time. Plus, I didn't beat Dan, who was in the adjacent lane (I didn't really expect to, but one can always hope). My strategy was to start with a fast pace, slow a bit in the middle, and then push again for the last 100 yards. Dan kept pace with me at the beginning but he moved slightly ahead with each pool length, and I lost my fight. I stopped pushing and slowed down for about 150 yards to catch my breath. Dan never slowed down. So when I got to the last 100 yards I knew he was uncatchable. I waited another 50 yards before pushing on the gas pedal and speeding into the wall. I wasn't too much out of breath at that point, which means I could have gone harder. I hate being out of breath. But I also hate knowing I didn't reach my potential.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: October 7, 2012
Location: Edinboro, Pa

Second meet of the season is in the books, and I set three more personal records! After a 700-yard warmup, I did four events:

Event #1: 100-yard freestyle.
Time: 1:09.44
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
My personal best set last year was 1:09.28. I did not beat that time, but I was close: 1:09.44. The actual records submitted to the Masters organization read 1:06.85, but I believe that is an error. The timing strips were set up wrong for the first few events of the meet and the 1:06 time was someone else's time. The person who got my 1:09.44 time might not know that he actually got 1:06.85. Fortunately, it made no difference in the age-group rankings for either him or me. Apart from that issue, this swim of mine was OK but not stellar. I know I could have done better. I had three turns and none of them were close enough to the wall to provide much thrust. Had I done my turns better, my time would have been 1-2 seconds faster. Oh, and a fellow team member pointed out that I didn't attack the wall at the end; I coasted in and got out-touched by my nearest competitors.

Event #2: 50-yard freestyle.
Time: 29.66
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My goal was to break 30 seconds, and I did! I was smiling for a good 30 min after this race was done, because I did it in 29.66 seconds. My old time was 30.4 seconds. In a race so short, this 0.74-second improvement is considerable. I had a great turn at the far wall to make up for the lousy ones in my last race.

Event #3: 50-yard breaststroke.
Time: 38.62
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
I have gone a year without improving my breaststroke times. But now I finally made progress. I swam this in 38.62 seconds, breaking my old record of 39.40. Again, a 0.78-second improvement is quite meaningful. I had a good dive, pull-out, and turn at the wall. I can't say that I was thinking about any other of my coach's pointers during the race; for example, I am pretty sure my head was up too high.

Event #4: 25-yard butterfly.
Time: 14.81
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
These short events are just pure fun and no one takes them very seriously because they are so short. In fact, I don't even breathe during a race like this. Anyway, because I did set another personal best, I'll make a big deal out of it. I swam this in 14.81 seconds, improving from my old record of 15.60. I may have shaved off some time due to a rather extended underwater series of dolphin kicks at the end of my dive.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Pittsburgh Great Race 10K

Race: 10K run
Date: September 30, 2012
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa
Time: 52:19
Overall Rank: 2487 out of 8207
Age Group Rank: 236 out of 517
Results: http://results.active.com/events/city-of-pittsburgh-great-race-5k-10k/10k

This is a huge race with 8,172 particpants in the 10K and countless more in a concurrent 5K race. Due to the size of the event, we had to wait at the starting line for about an hour before the 9:30am starting time. The temperature was only 51 degrees. This made me very cold--shivering, in fact. The actual run was easy for about 3 miles. I wasn't even breathing hard. But after that, the race lost some of its fun. Despite some heavy breathing and painful calf muscles, I enjoyed the various bands that played for us along the route and the cheering spectators. It was raining some of the time, so those spectators were just as dedicated as the race participants. Well, almost.

My pace was not as fast as my 5K personal record, but it is very, very good considering the distance and my poor training regimen these last few weeks. In fact, I ran faster than 54% of men in my age group. This is my first 10K race, though I did do a 10K run as part of a triathlon earlier in the summer.

Pittsburgh Great Race 10K official certificate for finishing.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: September 16, 2012
Location: Sewickley, Pa.

First swim meet of the season at Baierl Family YMCA:
Event #1: 200-yard freestyle relay
Time: 2:12.23
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
Great to have a new team member who appears to be one of the top 3 fastest people at the whole meet. I am not as fast as him, but my dive was awesome.
Event #2: 50-yard butterfly
Time: 33.53
Age Group Rank: 5 out of 7
I beat my personal best by >1 second, had a great dive and a great turn, and I only swallowed one mouthful of water (oops).

Event #3: 100-yard butterfly
Time: 1:21.78
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
I beat my personal best by almost 2 seconds despite having to pause at the midway point. I pulled myself together though, and finished the last 4 strokes without breathing.
Event #4: 200-yard freestyle
Time: 2:41.57
Age Group Rank: 5 out of 5
Arms still burning from the butterfly, I had a great dive and kept neck-to-neck with everyone in my heat for 125 yards. Then the guy next to me took off. This depressed me for 50 yards or so and then I went all-out at the end. I did not beat my personal best but it was a good swim and I'm happy.
Event #5: 25-yard breaststroke
Time: 17.16
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 3
No great expectations here since I knew I'd be tired. But I covered the distance in 17.16 seconds, beating my old time of 18.5.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Presque Isle Triathlon

Race: Sprint Triathlon
Date: August 25, 2012
Location: Erie, Pa.
Time: 1:24:47.10
Overall Rank: 100 out of 356
Age Group Rank: 12 out of 25
Results: http://www.runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R082512FA/AgeGroups.htm

This was my last triathlon of the season and I had a blast. Not only did I do well athletically but I was in the company of many friends. The location was on a peninsula extending several miles out into Lake Erie from near Erie, Pennsylvania. The date was Saturday, August 25th, which is significant because if I wasn’t doing this with friends, I would have missed the event completely. On my calendar, I had entered August 26th and was not even aware of my mistake until the afternoon before the race! Good thing I still had time to eat a big dinner and start drinking a lot of water to manage my hydration.

SWIM segment, 640 yards
Time: 13:34.10
Age Group Rank: 7 out of 25

The swim course was laid out as a 640-yard triangular course in Presque Isle Bay. This shallow body of water is located between the peninsula and the mainland, so it was supposed to be warmer and calmer water than if we were swimming on the Lake-facing side. Key phrase here is “supposed to be.” The wind was stiff (14mph gusting to 18mph) and the waves were significant (for swimming). Water temperature seemed to be in the mid 70s, which wasn’t too bad. However, the water was murky with visibility measured in inches and there was some floating, stringy seaweed. Except for the challenging wave action, I have swum in these conditions before. But one more thing made the swim a challenge: the swim was run as a time-trial start in alphabetical order of the swimmers’ last names. This means a slow swimmer with a last name starting with ‘A’ would be quickly overtaken by a faster swimmer with a last name listed later in the alphabet. This is an inconvenience for the fast swimmer and something really terrible for the slower swimmers, as they might be inadvertently pushed around by surrounding swimmers in addition to the nasty waves. The waves were really terrible, even for me, a fairly strong swimmer. I swallowed lots of water in the beginning but soon adjusted by rotating far to my side to take breaths between strokes. My biggest challenge was staying on course. I think I naturally swim to the right of center, and after the first turn of the triangular course I veered far to the right. A lifeguard on a Sea-doo watercraft intersected me and pointed the way. I looked up and saw about two dozen swimmers at least 25 yards to my left. That’s where I was supposed to be! I think I lost a lot of time being so far off course, and I got discouraged a little. Plus, with the heavy wave action, I found I was kicking with my legs a lot more during my freestyle than normal. So with some concern for lost time and wasted energy, I pushed hard to finish the third side of the triangle and I exited the water and ran to the transition area near the beach. I passed at least 10 people as I ran to the transition area. These folks were clearly fatigued by fighting that choppy water and seeing their distress made me feel a lot better about my own condition (sorry for them, though). My swim time was 13:34.10, which ranked 7 out of 25 in my age group.

T1 TRANSITION
My transition time between swim and bike was 2:25.95, which ranked 191 out of 356 non-relay race participants.

BIKE segment, 13 miles
Time: 37:09.00
Age Group Rank: 10 out of 25

Triathlon bike segment was along a park road
My pre-race strategy was to swim and bike as hard as I could and then run with whatever energy I had left. Running is my weakest area and in past triathlons I think I have held back on the bike segment so that I wouldn’t fatigue on the run. For today’s race, I was just going to go all-out and risk fatigue on the run. I can’t say that I swam as hard as I could on the swim segment because I simply wasn’t concentrating on my pace. I was concentrating on beating those terrible waves. So now that I was on the bike, I pedaled hard and didn’t stop until the end of the 13-mile course. The wind was still a problem at the beginning; a headwind made me work hard to maintain my average 21 mph speed on this flat course. The wind was the only challenge though; Presque Isle is basically a giant sandbar and the highest point on the whole peninsula is 7 feet above the Lake’s surface! I passed a bunch of folks on the bike and was only passed by racers who wore the teardrop-shaped bike helmets that have become popular among the top triathletes. No offense to anyone who wears one of those, but I think they look dorky and wouldn’t shave enough time off my race time to warrant wearing one (or warrant buying one at $175). Nevertheless, those folks passed me, so something has made them fast. I just doubt it’s the helmet.

Within the first mile on the ride I passed a friend of mine with a last name starting with ‘A.’ This didn’t mean I was going to beat him in the end, since he is a much faster runner. So I kept charging on that bike. About a mile before the end of the bike segment I passed another friend with a last name starting with ‘K’ (just like my last name!), so now I knew I was competitive and I tried to stay ahead of him the rest of the day. My bike time was 37:09.00, which ranked 10th out of 25 men in my age group.

T2 TRANSITION
My transition time between bike and run was 1:44.15 and ranked 276 out of 356 participants. One of my friends asked me later why I took so long to change into my running shoes. I have no good answer to this. I think I just go slow because I’m mentally preparing for the run (a big challenge for me) and that occupies my thoughts. I was never good at multi-tasking.

RUN segment, 3.5 miles
Time: 30:09.90
Age Group Rank: 14 out of 25

The 3.5-mile run course was out-and-back on a paved road for most of the way. My legs felt great but I was out of breath in the beginning. I consumed a GU for fuel and by the time I was done I had gotten into a sustainable rhythm. For a short while I was running pretty fast (for me), but I slowed down just a bit in order to manage my energy and be sure to complete the race. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t done this because I still had energy to burn as I crossed the finish line.

Near the finish line of the triathlon run segment.
Just before the turn-around point, my ‘A’-named friend that I passed on the bike segment passed me on the run. I expected this, but because he started the race earlier than me, it wasn’t clear how much he would have to beat me in the run in order to beat me overall. Since this was an out-and-back course, I looked at people who were racing in the opposite direction. I was both looking for my friends as well as the peoples’ race numbers, which indicated their placement in the alphabet and thus their start time in the race. I saw a satisfying amount of people behind me that had race numbers below mine. This meant that I was going to beat them in the overall race. I hate to admit that I am such a competitive person, but knowing I am beating somebody (anybody!) helps me keep going. For example, I saw my friend ‘C’ and then my friend ‘K’ and they were both behind me. I was beating them. Yay!

At the finish line, my friend ‘A’ called out and said “Jim, this is where you can sprint!” and since I still had energy left, I followed through with the advice and sped up. I finished the run in 30:03.90, which ranked 14 out of 25 in my age group. Overall, I finished the sprint triathlon in 1:24:47.10, which ranked 12 out of 25 in my age group and 100 out of 356 overall. I beat all my friends, and I am surprised that I feel less jubilant about that than I thought I would. I’m pleased about it, but beating them was really not that important. We finished the race; we supported one another; we bonded in the experience. That’s why I’m happy tonight.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Janney and the Y North Park Triathlon

Race: Sprint Triathlon
Date: August 12, 2012
Location: Allison Park, Pa.
Time: 1:26:23
Overall Rank: 154 out of 410
Age Group Rank: 12 out of 26
Results: http://www.runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R081212AD.HTML

Swim Segment, distance = 700m
Time: 17:09
Overall Rank: 119 out of 410
Part of the North Park sprint triathlon. I'm happy with this pace. I was ranked 119 out of 410 athletes. Time includes running a fair distance out of the pool to the T1 transition area.

Bike Segment, distance = 12 miles
Time: 40:26
Overall Rank: 148 out of 410
Part of the North Park sprint triathlon. I'm happy with this pace. The 40:26 time includes the T2 transition. I ranked 148 out of 410.

Run Segment, distance = 5K
Time: 28:48
Overall Rank: 203 out of 410
Part of the North Park sprint triathlon. Not proud of this pace but it's normal for me. My run ranked 203 out of 410, so I'm about average.