Tough Ride

Just got back from my ride. I rode about 26 miles in 1:12. I averaged just over 21mph. I was bombing it the entire way. For some reason, I just didn't feel like going slow today. Also, the ride wasn't flat and the wind wasn't calm. When I got back, the temp was 88 degrees so it was probably 90 when I started the ride. I took 2 water bottles out and drained the first one in 20 minutes. The other one lasted me the rest of the ride. I was thirsty, but the mix that I was using wasn't quenching my thirst. Maybe I need something that is a lot thinner. I used a mix of Isopure protein powder, Carbo Pro, and Gatorade. I think the protein powder is making the mix chalky. I'll just leave it out next time or I could have my InfinIT by then as well.

I wanted to go out hard today because I haven't done much speedwork lately. I really like speedwork because I think that gets you faster over longer distances. Since putting in a ton of miles will likely kill my left knee, the miles that I do put in need to be fast ones so that my fitness level doesn't backtrack. Problem is that it has already.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Thursday: I rode with Texas Iron for the usual Thursday workout. I did some hill repeats. I did 2 in the warmup and then 3 more for the workout at a harder pace. Eventhough I haven't been on the bike in a month I was powering up the hills pretty well and pushing a lot of other people. I finished the hill repeats and went back to the car. I only did 3 repeats because I didn't want to push my knee too hard too soon. Afterwards, I was almost home, but I really wanted some beer so I turned around and ate dinner with the rest of the group. I came home and crashed immediately.

Friday: I ran 30 minutes in the morning. It was humid outside and I got really sweaty really quickly. My knee was bothering me the entire time so I cut it short. I was going to go for 40-45 minutes, but only got 30 in because of the knee. I lifted weights after work and I'm glad it. Fridays are lazy days for me so it's tough for me to get any workouts in.

Saturday: No workouts. Instead, I was up really, really early to volunteer for the collegiate conference championship. There was a road race in the morning and a team time trial in the afternoon. I volunteered to be a corner marschal and it was pretty cool. I was really tired unfortunately. Besides watching cycling, I didn't do much at all.

Sunday: I finished watching the races this morning. There was a crit around the stadium at UT. After that, I came home and doing errands now. Later today, I'll ride my bike for about 60 minutes. I'm upping my time on the bike because it doesn't bother my knee as bad. Running definitely tweaks it. I'll try to get more miles on the ground tomorrow though. I need to pick up my exercises more, though. I really need to do more work with the TP ball to work out my hamstrings and knee.

Cycling and being cold

On Tuesday, I cycling on the spin bikes at the gym for about 45 minutes. My knee felt fine. I even got my heart rate up there a bit as well. That felt really good.

Today, I swam at Deep Eddy. It was really freaking cold. The first 100 felt like I was swimming at a 1:00 pace because I was going hard just to stay warm. After that, I adjusted to the water by going numb. I did about 3000yds in 60 minutes. Mostly drills and lots of rest so I could've done about 3400yds in an hour if I'm swimming continuously.

I lifted weights again tonight. I'll see if lifting helps me to drop the lbs and get me down to 170. I've been meaning to use my fitness program on my PalmPilot to track my calories, but I'm lazy.

I been on the reduced supplements since Sunday and I'm feeling a lot better. I don't know if it's coincidence or not.

Replying to comments

So, I actually do get some comments on my blog (thanks, mcoker). When people ask questions in the comments, should I create a new post replying to it or reply to the comment with another comment? Or should I just feel special that someone is actually reading this, smile, and be on my way?

Itchy, itchy, itchy!

My crotch is itchy. I don't know what happened, but I developed a rash in my crotch. I'm pretty sure that it's from something workout related though. At first, it just looked like an ingrown hair, but it has grown and spread to the point that it is definitely a rash. If anyone has any ideas on how to get rid of this, let me know.

Supplements are bad, mmkay?

I've decided something. I'm stopping all of my supplements. About a month ago, I started on about 3 brand new supplements. I started on a new pharmeceutical grade multivitamin, a B complex vitamin, and some ZMA (zinc magnesium aspartate). For the last 2 weeks, I've been feeling slightly sick. I have no energy and I'm always tired. I'm stopping all supplements and pills except for Lexapro (I'll be off of that in a month anyways), fish oil, and glucosamine. I'll see if I'm feeling any better and if I am, I'll add in the other supplements every 2 weeks to see which one is causing me to feel like crap. I think it might be the multivitamin. The nutritionist that I saw about 2 months ago said that I need to switch from a generic multivitamin to something that is of better quality. I think the multivitamin might be the culprit, though. We'll see.

Weekend Update

Let's see what I've done recently. On Friday morning, I ran with Lauren for about 30 minutes. I felt fine, but running is still very tough for me. I just don't feel comfortable. I don't know whether it's because I'm not used to running on hard ground because of my knee or it's the hot and humid weather lately. Friday evening, I did some yoga. My knee was feeling better than the last time that I did yoga so that's a good sign. I'm feeling really inflexible, though.

Saturday was pretty lazy. Another 30 minute run with Lauren and Jeff. Once again, I just didn't feel comfortable running. Not easy at all. The knee hurts for about 5 minutes, but then it goes away. Other than that, I didn't do jack on Saturday. I did some PT exercises, but I was very lazy. This is just really frustrating since this knee injury is holding me back in almost everything.

This morning, I swam for 30 minutes with Lauren. Even swimming I can still feel pain in the back of my knee. It's less centralized, though. Sometimes it's the medial side of the back of the knee, sometimes it's the lateral side, sometimes it's more in the hamstrings, and sometimes it's more in the gastroc muscle. It's all over the place. Not cool. After swimming, Lauren had to go meet her brother to ride their bikes so I stayed and aquajogged for an hour. Once again, my knee was hurting. I saw Aquajogging Lady there and I haven't seen her at Barton Springs in months. She's kinda cute, too.

Ran Today

I ran today. My knee hurt afterwards. It is feeling better now, but it still hurt. No limping though. I ran 26 minutes which is about 3 miles around the campus at work. My heart rate was elevated because I haven't ran much and it was really hot and humid even for 7:30 in the morning.

I got my BF checked and it came in at 13.1%. When I look in the mirror, I don't see 13.1%, but maybe I have a not good mental image of myself. My weight was at 185.5 with a lean mass of 162.

I lifted weights for the first time in over a month. I was really, really pissy from work so I went to the gym. I feel better now so that's good. Lifting normally isn't a good stress relief for me. It worked today. I need to start lifting more because I think it might be the key to getting me down to 170. It's the only other thing that I can think of to do.

Crabby

I'm feeling really crabby right now. I didn't work out today because I was busy with doctor appointments and work. Work just drained me. Not fun. My PT said today to start trying to alternate cycling and running for 30 minutes each day to see how the back of my knee feels. I'm going to run tomorrow morning and see what it's like after that.

Would you like a salad with your swimming?

Lauren and I swam at Barton Springs tonight for about 25 minutes. It was disgusting. It was crowded with people and there was all kinds of moss floating in the water. I got at least one good mouthful and the water smelled really bad. Not fun at all. I don't really like swimming at BS, but it's decent open water swimming in town. It was just nasty tonight though. I was suppose to swim for 45 minutes, but after Lauren was done I got out as well.

Ouch

After being in my house all day long, my knee is really tight. It only hurts when I first start to move, but after that, it feels better. So, running and cycling both hurt it. Not fun. Man, why can't I stay injury free for even 3 fucking months.

Death March

After yesterday's run, I decided to go ahead and try a 60 minute run. Well, it's not 60 min, but it is 8.2 miles, roughly, which is 2 laps around Town Lake using the S 1st St bridge. I went out drinking last night and I wanted to see how much I weighed today from 1 night of drinking. I weighed in at 184.5 yesterday and 187.5 this morning. After my run today, I came back and weighed in at 183.5. Shit, I lost a lot of weight and that's a great indication of how freaking hot it was out there. When I got back, it was around 88 degrees. This is good because after IMAZ, I meant to do some heat acclimation running and this was a perfect day for it, but because this is the 2nd run in 3 weeks and I went out drinking last night, I didn't have a great run.

My legs were dead and heavy. I wasn't going that fast either. I kept wanting to stop but I kept moving. I have to do this and "run the run" when I do IMFL so I need to start practicing now. Well, I was practicing today for sure. I didn't feel like I could push that much harder, either. I tend to take awhile to get back up to speed after I'm off for awhile so this is typical. I just need to keep running.

Also, the back of my knee is still hurting. The front of my knee was about a 1 on the pain scale, but I could feel it. The back of the knee was a 4 or so. It caused me to limp afterwards. I'll work on doing some PT exercises today and tomorrow and then see Nicole again on Tuesday.

I ran today!

I ran today for about 30 minutes. I did about 3.5 miles or so around Town Lake. My knee was achy at first, but once I got warmed up, it was ready to go. I was still feeling some pain in the front of my knee though. It was only a 1, maybe a 2, on a scale of 1 to 10, but still noticeable. The back of the knee felt weird as well. I was trying to go slow and I felt like I was going slow for me. I almost stopped once because it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I attribute this to not running in 3 weeks.

Afterwards, I went and aquajogged for about 20 minutes and then swam 2 lengths of Barton Springs. Swimming after running is miserable and I don't know why my coach does this torture to us.

After that, I went to the friendly folks at Austin Tricyclist and I think I alone finished off their breakfast tacos. Breakfast tacos are more addicting than crack, especially if they are free. I ran into Lauren and Matt and I ended up talking to Lauren for about 30 to 45 minutes or so about races, horrible IM's, and running shoes.

Tomorrow, I plan on doing a 60 minute run and some yoga, maybe. We'll see how my knee feels.

Aquajog and Yoga

I aquajogged for about 50 minutes on Thursday. I'm getting really used to the temp at Barton Springs now which is scary. I used to be freezing whenever I got in the water the entire time, but now I'm fine after about 60 seconds.

Friday included some yoga.

My weight is down to about 184-185. I'm drinking tonight so it'll be interesting to see how much it goes up because of tonight. Maybe I can get by with having only 3 drinks or so tonight. The medication that I'm on will hopefully be reduced starting next week and I'm interested in seeing how my weight changes.

The back of my left knee is still bothering my quite a bit. It was hurting in yoga. I need to really get in and work on my gastroc to ease it up a bit.

Now, I'm off for my first run in about 3 weeks!

Experimenting with Athletic Performance and Antidepressants

I posted this on Slowtwitch awhile ago and I wanted to post it here as well:

"Now, there have been some recent threads about how being on antidepressants affect athletic performance. I'm currently on antidepressants and I'm pretty open about discussing my situation with anyone that asks and I'm willing to share my thoughts & inputs on the subject. Now, some people feel like AD's affect your performance and others do not. Well, let's try an experiment.

I'm willing to use myself as a guinea pig to test my hypothesis that AD's do affect athletic performance. This is prompted by me getting the results from my VO2max and LT tests and feeling that they are fairly under what I'm capable of. My LT on the bike was measured at 149bpm and that is well below what I'm capable of before I was on this medication.

So, here is what I'm going to measure over the next week to get a baseline:

Resting heart rate
VO2max (done)
LT (done)
Weight, lean mass, and body fat %
RMR (calculated in calories per lb lean body mass)

The plan is that once i establish a baseline, I'll get tested again in August. That'll be about 6 months from now. My doctor, my therapist, and myself are going to start weening myself off of the medication in April. That should give my system about 3 months to completely rid itself of the medication.

Now, I believe that since I've been on the medication, it is more difficult to lose weight, my LT and VO2max are lower, and I'm unable to push myself harder to my limits. The huge variable will be that I'm doing about 12-15 hours of base training a week, but I'm ramping up for IMFL in November. I'm going to keep track of my calories which will show the calorie deficit that I have.

I'm opening this up to the ST community. What else should I measure? What am I forgetting about this? I know that IM training will likely skew the results, but hopefully this will be to show something about my hypothesis."

With that thread, here are the results that I expect to see:

RMR - I expect this to be increased once I'm off the meds. It is a known side effect of weight gain from AD's because your metabolism slows down. This should go up.
Weight - This will go down because metabolism has gone up
Lean mass - No clue, but I want to track this and see what my RMR/lb lean mass is and use that as a better comparison than RMR(on AD) vs RMR(off AD).
Body fat % - If I'm tracking Weight and lean mass, getting body fat % is pretty easy. This should go down.
Resting heart rate - It'll probably go down as I become more endurant, but I don't think it is affected by the drugs
Max heart rate - No change either, but I believe that when I'm not on drugs that it's easier for me to get near my MHR though
LT - No change due to SSRI's.
VO2max - This should increase because my weight will go down, hopefully.

I'm posting this so people can follow along with my "experiment".

PT Updates

Man, I'm really injury prone. I had Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis forever. It finally went away when I developed knee pain in my left knee on a long run one day. It was a radiating pain up my vastus medialis and then a sharp stabbing pain on the inside of my knee on the lower medial side of my kneecap. Not fun. I had the same pain in my right knee when I hurt it hiking about 2 years ago. I tried running on it and it wasn't getting better. Well, it was getting better, but only to a point. My physical therapist, Kathryn, is great, but I wanted to try something different. My friend Lauren has been seeing a guy named AJ Zelinski that specializes in in ART or Active Release Therapy. It worked for me. The knee pain was going away and I found out a lot problems with my legs. What they found wrong with me is similar to what Kathryn and my chiropractor said were wrong with me. The knee pain started to get better and I started to loosen up some tigh muscles. I went on a 75 mile bike ride on April 1st and the back of my knee started hurting. It hurt Saturday and Sunday, a little on Monday, but was fine on Tuesday. I saw AJ and then went for a ride after that. Knee pain again. I had Laurie work on my while I was in Arizona. She told me that my pelvis was twisted. I learned that this is probably from the fact that I keep my wallet in my back left pocket all the time. It's now in my front pocket forever. I also got a ton more exercises to do, but I think things are working. I start running again this weekend as well. I'm out of biking because of the back of the knee pain that is directly linked to biking. Kathryn called me to check up on me. I feel bad for using another PT, but they are working. It isn't like Kathryn is a bad PT. She is wonderful, but this place offers a different approach that is working for me.

Post IMAZ Aquajog & Swim

I got back from IMAZ (spectating report is coming soon) on Monday night. I got sick while on vacation and my training was shot. Last night, I got in an aquajog for about 30 minutes since I had barely worked out since Wednesday the week before. I felt good. I hate aquajogging, but hopefully I'm almost done. One of my PT's told me to start running again this weekend. Tonight, I was suppose to have a 45 minute swim and a core workout. I had every intention of doing that today, but when I woke up at 8:35 and I had a meeting at 9 at work, I forgot some stuff at home. I swam about 1500 yds tonight. I felt tired and out of breath, but I think I'm just recovering from being sick. Right now, I have a slight headache and I think it is from an oxygen debt during swimming.

Hill Country Hundred (Plus)

Yesterday, I participated in the Hill Country Hundred. It was a charity ride benefiting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society aka TNT. My friend Christina was one of the main people organizing the ride. Since I consider myself "a friend of The Society", I wanted to do the ride because I believe in the cause. I signed up over a month ago.

I got up on Saturday morning at about 6 to leave at 7 because the ride started at 8. It was an hour away or so. The weather was crappy that morning. It was rainy, but the forecast was suppose to be nice that day. The Cervelo needed to be ridden because I put on the saddle that Lauren gave me about a month ago. I hadn't ridden it more than 25 miles and I needed to test it out on a longer ride to see how comfortable it was. Well, the rain prevented that and I took out my Fuji beater bike, Fiona, instead.

I got there and the weather was starting to look better. It was wet, but it was clearing up. I got ready for the ride and was talking to some of the TNT people. I was messing around with my bike and my foot slipped off the pedal. It scraped the pedal on my shin and left a nice mark.

The ride started on time and there were routes for 62 miles, 31 miles, and 16 miles. I was doing the 62 mile route, of course. It was well supported with signs at every turn, 5 rest stops throughout the ride. It was fairly windy but we were able to catch a tailwind going out. About 12 miles into the ride, we hit the biggest hill of the entire ride. I climbed up the hill and I had one guy actually pass me. I stuck on his wheel, though. I'm not that great of a climber, but I try and this guy was definitely more experienced than me. We got up to the top of the hill and I looked back. We had dropped the entire group by a longshot. We took turns pulling and we were cruising pretty well. Problem was that I had no clue how well we were cruising. My heart rate monitor was broke and I forgot my bike computer on the Cervelo.

We let the rest of the group catch up and my new buddy, John, and his friend, Kurt, were leading the group. We took a turn at Florence that was on the map. We kept going and looking for the next turn. After a little while, we realized that we weren't finding the turning point. We were looking for CR 230. We found 232, 233, 234, and then 235. At 235, the three of us stopped. After a few more minutes, a lot of the other riders showed up. I called Christina and found out the problem. The sign had blown away and the road was mismarked. Well, it was marked correctly, but not until 200yds into the road.

We turned around and just headed back the way that we came. We got back to Florence and I was about dead. I was on the verge on bonking and it was difficult to get my legs to go. I hadn't eaten much breakfast and at this point we were over 35 miles into the ride. John, Kurt, and myself stopped at a Citgo to get refueled. I really needed it since I ate a very small breakfast. Rice Krispy Treats are my snack of choice on the road. I may need to train more with them because they work for me.

We got fueled up and kept going. The next rest stop was about 7 miles up the road and I stopped there again. The road leading up to the rest stop was downhill, but with a strong headwind. I'm usually a pussy when it comes to the wind. I bitch and complain about it and I let it slow me down. I needed to learn how to not let the wind get to me and to use it as a training tool. Powering through the wind is what I needed to do. I used this day as a great day for this and powered through the wind to the rest stop. I stopped and ate way too much food, especially after the food that I got at the gas station. Next time, lay off so much food at the aid stations.

I kept going because there were maybe 8 miles to the next rest stop. I filled up with water and kept going. The next rest stop was fairly uneventful. I stopped for a total of 2 minutes, got some fluids, and kept going. I was getting worried about hydration at this point. It was getting hot and I hadn't had to pee since the turnaround when we got lost. I tried to force fluids into me and I was thirsty, but I didn't want to drink. It was weird.

I kept going by myself. John and Kurt passed me at the last rest stop because they didn't stop, but I caught up with them and kept going. There was still a pretty good wind and I kept powering through it. My legs were getting tired, but after getting some food in my belly, I was feeling fueled up. At the last rest stop, I stopped at very briefly. I chatted with Misty and told me that Christina was wondering where I was at. At that point, there were only 5 miles left, and I was going to push myself. Well, I had to push myself. The wind the last 5 miles was the worst. I was struggling eventhough I had very smooth pavement and no hills. I was doing about 75rpm and about 14mph. It hurt, but I made it through to the finish line.

It was a great ride overall. The course was well marked except for the single blown away sign. The rest stops were well stocked as well and the volunteers were helpful. At the end, I rode a total of 74 miles when I started out doing 62. The entire time I felt like I could finish the ride and I did pretty good considering the strong winds. THe problem though is that after the ride, the back of my left knee was hurting. Today (Sunday), it is still hurting and hopefully I can slip in a PT appointment tomorrow to take a look at it.

Overall, it was a great ride and an awesome training day for me.

Texas Triathlon Race Report

Well, since I've found out that actually more than myself reads my training blog, so I might as well keep it updated more often. So, I'm going to shoot for updating it once a week, but we'll see how that goes.

Well, the Texas Tri in Canyon Lake, TX was last Saturday. This was the first race of the season and was a C race. Hell, I didn't even know what time the race started until the night before. I did some carb loading for this race, but I've decided that carb loading for races Oly and below isn't worth it to me. It upsets my stomach which causes interesting problems. My coaches had me do some tapering this week, but not much. I've been doing base riding for IM training so I haven't been training for speed at all.

I didn't get all my gear together for the race until around 10pm the night before. I went to bed at around 11:30ish and got up the next day at 5. I left the house at 6 and showed up at the race site at around 7. I didn't eat that much that morning. Well, I had a decent amount. Like I said, I'm can't take carb loading well, so I didn't eat what Monique Ryan's book recommends. I got to the race site and it was freaking cold. I think the low that morning was around 35 or so. I also had a new record low for RP's. I only had 3 of them. I wasn't that nervous that morning because I wasn't stressed about the race at all, so that's why I didn't have many RP's.

Everyone was worried about the water at the race. Since it was the first race of the year, the water hadn't warmed up much. The water temp was about 62 degrees. Once I got everything set up, it was announced that the race would start about 30 minutes late to let the weather warm up a bit. That wouldn't matter much because the water was still freaking cold.

I was in the first wave with the under 30 men. I got in the water a few minutes before the start to warm up for the swim. I got in and the water wasn't too bad. Of course, I never put my arms in, either. I was wearing a sleeveless wetsuit and I thought I would be fine. After the race started, the water was cold. I couldn't feel my pinky on my left hand after about 2 minutes. I thought I was a great swimmer, but I quickly got left behind by the lead group. Water was cold, I was trying to push myself but it wasn't working, and I wasn't that use to open water swimming. I mean, I have done some swimming in Barton Springs, and I can usually swim about 1:30/100yds in the pool as my forever pace. I didn't feel like I was swimming that fast. I kept pushing, but I just wasn't going that fast. I turned the first buoy and Andrea Fisher passed me at that point. She's fast. I kept swimming and nothing else interesting happened. I turned the second buoy and picked up the pace a bit as I headed to the end of the swim.

I came out of the water and I had the normal dizziness. The transition area was in an asphalt parking lot and I had nothing on my feet. That hurt going through T1. I got to my spot in the T area and I had a plan. I was going to put on my sleeveless bike jersey and a cycling jacket, but putting on a jersey while wet wasn't exactly quick. I got my jacket on, but I didn't zip it up. I planned on doing that on the bike. I got everything else together, grabbed my bike, and headed out of T1. My coaches taught me how to come out of T1 with my shoes clipped into my pedals. I tried doing that, but as I came out of T1, some lady crashed right in front of me. I had to swerve to avoid her and I managed to somehow lose my shoe. Damnit. I had to stop and put my shoe back on.

Ok, I'm on the bike. I'm still not in my shoes though. I'm just trying to get to somewhere that is downhill and get into my shoes. I see Dave who is taking pictures and he snaps a ton of pictures of me. The part of the course in the park is fairly smooth and downhill so I got my feet into my shoes. I tried zipping up jacket because it was still pretty cold. After almost wrecking 6 times trying to zip up my jacket while riding without my hands, I gave that up. I got out of the park and onto the main roads. That sucked. The roads were chip seal and I hate riding on chip seal. Also, the course was pretty damn hilly, too. At one point, I was riding up a hill and my wheel sounded funny. I stopped because by back brake was rubbing on my rim. I got going again and kept going up the hills. I stopped again to zip up my jacket because it was bothering me. At that point, I saw someone that passed me that caught my eye. Some redheaded girl that was really cute passed me. I started riding again after I zipped up my jacket. I enjoyed the view riding behind her because she was hot and had a nice body, but I was here to race and I could attempt to hit on her after the race. The bike course was miserable for me. I only had 1 bottle of water and I don't think I managed my nutrition properly. The chip seal wore we down and there was some massive wind as well that took it's toll on me. By the end of the bike ride, I was doing everything that I could to do to get the pedals to turn over. I really wanted to be off the bike.

I came into the park again and it was a mile before the T2. I got out of my shoes and cruised into T2. I had practiced dismounting with my shoes on the pedals before and never had a problem. I did it again this time. However, somehow I dropped another shoe. I think I need new pedals or something because they've been very problematic for me lately. I put my bike up and I had to go back and get my shoes because of the equipment abandonment rule. I felt like crap, but I still had to run. I did my T2 and got out on the run course. My legs felt like they were made out of lead. The weather had warmed up quite a bit by now, though and I was feeling good. The cute chick on the bike (damn, she was hot), actually passed me in T2 and was just ahead of me on the run. I tried to run her down and maybe get her digits while on the course, but that was one race that I lost. She is one hell of an athlete and I lost site of her quickly. Mile 1 felt bad. Mile 2 was even worse because of The Hill. I had a Gu right after The Hill and get going. Mile 3 was a little easier because it was mostly downhill. By the end of Mile 3, I was getting by running legs back and picked up the pace. By this time, there were a lot more people on the course and I run much faster because I run people down one by one. This pushed me on Mile 4 and Mile 5. I saw Kelly on The Hill on Mile 5 and left her. Mile 6 was great because I opened it up a bit and picked up a decent amount of time. The one thing that I noticed on this run was that my heart rate wasn't above 160. I could have pushed myself more, but my legs just weren't there. After the race, I found out that I was running about the same pace that I was at St. Anthony's almost a year ago, but at St. A's my heart rate was in the 180+ range. Also, this course was a lot of up and down and St. A's was flat. By this, it would seem that I'm a much faster runner than I was a year ago.

I crossed the finish line and I was done. I had finished in around 2:38something. I was faster in the water than St. A's, about the same on the run, but the bike was much slower. It was a very different course, though. After the race, my official time was 2:38:45. I finished 4th in my age group, but there were only 6 people in it, too. I had a swim split of 26:23 with a pace of 1:46. I'm somewhat disappointed at that. My bike split was 1:23:38 with an average pace of 18.7mph. Once again, a very hilly course compared to St. A's where I averaged 23mph. I had a T1 of 1:39 which I thought was pretty bad because I had problems, but it wasn't so bad compared to everyone else. I had no T2 time because my chip did register on that mat. My run time was 47:04, but that included T2. Oh, the really cute girl finished with a time of around 2:28 and was the 3rd woman overall. Damn, that's sexy.

Not bad considering the course, but it was very humbling. I thought that I was advancing up in the triathlon ranks fairly well, but I wished I had done better at this race. My training is completely different now than it was a year ago for St. A's so that is part of it. Also, I believe the medication that I'm on is holding me back a bit. I need to work on my nutrition on the bike and I also need to hold back on the bike a bit so my legs are better on the run. I also need to do more bike-run bricks and to do them quickly. When I do them now, I have about 5 minutes between the bike and the run, but I need to practice them to get them down to 2 minutes or less, preferably 1 minute. Open water swim work is also something that needs practice.

It was the first race of the year, and it hurt pretty badly. I finished though and I wasn't nervous for this. It put me into a mindset that I have a lot to work on if I want to do better this season. Everything leads up to IMFL this year and I have a lot to learn and to work on before then.