The Kids Are Alright

A recap from Saturday's race is forthcoming, just waiting for some pics.  Here's a sneak peak: Angelia cut 6 minutes off her 10k time in her first 10k race!  I just missed a PR (sort of) in my first 5k race, scoring 2nd in my division!  Julian, the 5k veteran, took home his usual 1st place prize!  It was a cold, windy, but successful affair!

In the meantime, I thought I'd talk a bit about the younger triathletes in our house.  Do they suffer from Mommy and Daddy's training schedules?  Well, sometimes.  But they also pick up a lot of good habits.  They ask questions about nutrition and Connor is always coming up with new "exercises".  The last few days have had several reminders of the things they grasp through simple observation.

Yes, the dinosaur horn made it safely
 from the old bike to the new.

As you may recall from a previous post, Connor had a new bike waiting for him upon his return from Disney.  He turned 4 while there and has recently sprouted upwards.  The 12" bike was just not going to get the job done any longer.  The nice folks at Rockwall Cycling gave us some value for his Specialized HotRock and we upgraded him to a new 16" (same brand and model).  Finally, the opportunity had arrived for him to take it for a spin around the block!  When it comes to Connor and cycling he typically refuses to ride less than 1.5 miles.  For some reason, even with the excitement of a new bike he called this ride short.  I was quite surprised when he wanted to go back to the house.  We get his bike up to the garage, he dismounts, gets me to help with his helmet, and then ....... he's off running down the driveway calling for me to follow!  I jog behind him for a bit until he asks me if he's run enough yet.  I tell him he can do whatever he wants.  He runs back to the house, up to the garage, and what's the first thing he says to me?  "We don't have a place to swim."  Uh, no, we don't ..... and when did my 4yr old start doing brick workouts?

The day after the Trinity River Levee Run (race recap coming), I had a 2hr recovery ride on my schedule.  I'd been looking forward to this as the whole week had been run-centric.  My bike wasn't completely neglected though.  I gave it some new red tires, red handlebar tape, and clip-on aerobars.  The nice thing about a weekend recovery ride is it provides a rare opportunity to ride with Julian.  Frankly, I'm horrible at holding my pace back for recovery so this situation is a win-win.  Julian gets to go on an extended bike ride and on top of the father-son bonding stuff I also get a nice safety mechanism to keep me from pushing too hard.  We take off along some of our usual roads, sometimes side by side, sometimes single-file.  When Julian was riding ahead of me he started doing something I hadn't seen him do before --- he used hand signals to warn me of debris!  We've worked on signals for turning, slowing, and such before but the debris warnings were out of the blue, something he's picked up through observation.  It provided a perfect opening to expand upon regarding communication when riding in a group and we ended up doing some skills work while cruising down an empty road.  In the end he knocked out about 15 miles at a solid pace for him before stopping at home.  I continued riding another half-hour or so to round out my ride but was pleased with our hour together.  Side note: it also gave him a chance to wear his new Rockwall Cycling jersey Angelia was kind enough to grab for him!

So, there you have it.  We may be crazy, we may be eternally busy, but our boys are learning good things and enjoy getting outside to be active with Mommy and Daddy.  Is that so bad?

Apology to those with RSS feed

Sorry guys.  I made a minor edit to some blog posts and apparently they all re-posted which resulted in me taking over some blogrolls.  Honest mistake.  My actual new post today is here: We Must Endure

We Must Endure

So Wednesday afternoon Julian elected to join me on a 45 minute jog.  I made it very clear beforehand that the goal wasn't speed but simply to put the time in and complete the run.  You see, Julian only knows one speed and time/distance are irrelevant.  He'll run that pace over a short distance and get clobbered by the competition, but start stretching out that distance and as others fade dramatically he just keeps chugging along at the same pace to overtake them.  I thought for sure he'd constantly be ahead of me and I'd have to be a nagging reminder to go easier on this particular day.  That was not the case.

For whatever reason only a quarter-mile into the run the complaining began.  As a parent we sometimes have to discern the validity of those complaints.  Is there a real physical issue or is this just a case of "I don't wanna do it"?  This time I felt strongly it was the latter.  Fortunately Angelia and Connor were out shopping for new baseball cleats which meant I couldn't just leave Julian at the house.

"Sorry buddy, you're just gonna have to stick with me till we're done."

10 minutes --- Julian: "My legs hurt."

20 minutes --- Julian: "I just want to go home."

30 minutes --- At this point even he was getting tired of complaining.

35 minutes --- Me: "Julian, they don't call them easy sports.  They call them endurance sports.  That means we endure.  We fight through the pain.  We fight through our minds telling us to quit.  We fight through it for the sense of accomplishment that waits at the end.  We endure.  That's what we do."

40 minutes --- Is it just me or has the pace picked up?

45 minutes --- Back at home.  Before he walks inside we have one final chat.

Me: "You tired?"
Julian: "Yes."
Me: "Did you keep pushing through?"
Julian: "Yes."
Me: "Do you remember what I said our goal was today?"
Julian: "Not to run hard. To go for 45 minutes."
Me: "And did we do that?"
Julian: "I don't know."
Me: "Well, we did."
Julian (with a stunned look of surprise): "We did?"
Me: "Yep, and look at you.  You're still standing here.  You may be tired and you may even hurt a little but now you get to go inside, rest, and recover and you get to do that with the knowledge you just completed a 45 minute run.  Nice job."

I hold up my hand for a high-five and he smacks it then takes another sip of water before heading into the house where Angelia and Connor are now waiting.  An hour later he feels perfectly fine and even heads out to the track with Angelia the following day.  Me?  I'm thankful my next day's training schedule says to "stretch and relax".  Oh, to be 9 again.

I'm a Runner (for a week anyway)

Oops!  Has it really been a whole week since the last post?  You'd think with the kids out of town all week there would've been plenty of time to write blog posts.  Instead, work and training carried on as usual while life threw a curve ball at us.  That curve ball resulted in a new car which is only a Yakima roof rack away from being the official Tri4Success event vehicle.  The last week also included a lot of post-duathlon pains and a hilly bike ride with my wife.  The week ahead?  Well, it includes the Trinity River Levee Run which will mark the first time Angelia, Julian, and I have all raced the same running event.

The week in review:

1)  So outside of the car fiasco, this week was all about pain - in the glutes, groin, and hamstrings (the tendons, not the muscles).  During physical therapy for my knees last year it was discovered that I am one super-tight individual.  My IT bands and hamstrings are so tight that I stuck out like a sore thumb even amongst those who were recovering from recent major surgeries.  Masseuses marvel at the fact I'm capable of movement.  The nasty thing about being this way is in the case of injury there's no way to speed the healing process which is typically 2-6 weeks.  Anti-inflammatories can help manage it in the early healing stages but full strength and function simply takes time.  For this week, that meant I was able to stay somewhat active but anything requiring a burst of power was just not in my repertoire.

2)  The kids being away provided a rare opportunity for my wife and I to do some workouts together.  On Wednesday, I joined her at the running track where she's helping a Rockwall Running Center Couch to 5k class.  Essentially I warmed up with them but took off at my own pace for 30 minutes when it was time to run.  So I guess we didn't really run together but we did run at the same place at the same time ..... that's something.  In the process I set a new best over 5k at 28:02, a full 2:16 better than the prior week.

the Rockwall hill route

On Sunday, I had a hill route on my schedule.  This is a 20+ mi route that hits some of the best climbs in Rockwall.  We might not be the hilliest place around but when you get by the lake you can string together some quarter-mile 10% grades to get a solid workout.  Well, as it turns out Angelia had a 2-hr ride on her schedule with the note "make it challenging".  After some talking she was convinced to come along with me and ride the main vein of the route (which still has several really solid climbs) while skipping the back and forth repeats in a couple neighborhoods.  It turned out to be a really good ride.  The wind was at our backs for the 8.5mi warm-up stretch before hill time arrived.  She did a great job on the climbs --- I think better than she expected, but much as I felt that first time, the predominant thought was "no more, please".  It couldn't have hit her too hard though because once we were back on our normal flat roads she got in the drops and pushed the pace.  I knew there was a cyclist hiding in there!

3) Happy Birthday to the youngest member of this team, uh, I mean family.  Connor is 4 years old now and sprouting like a weed.  In fact, he's growing so fast we had to change out some of his gear.  This little surprise is in the garage awaiting his return.  I wonder how long before he'll notice it ..... we're not saying a thing.

The week ahead:

A strange thing about runners versus cyclists --- when a cyclist has ridden over a 100k on a ride, ANY ride, he can say he's done a metric century, when a runner has run 5k it doesn't count unless it was in a race.  Seriously, you can find this discussion on a number of endurance sports forums.  So, since I seem to be running over 5k every time I step out for a training session I thought it was time to make it official.  Angelia was already planning to run the Trinity River Levee Run put on by Dallas Running Club as her first official 10k and now I'm signed up to do the 5k route at the same event.  To round it out for team Tri4Success we signed up Julian as well.  He'll unknowingly serve as my rabbit to chase.

So there you have it, all caught up.  Till next post ......... (in less than a week, I promise)

The Texas Motor Speedway Duathlon

Perhaps I should title this post "A Trifecta of Bling".  It's a heart-pumping, leg-cramping, hand-numbing tale of the family that participated in their first ever duathlon and returned with identical 2nd place awards.  The event was The Texas Motor Speedway Duathlon put on by Ironhead Race Productions and the story ..... well, it's likely to get a bit lengthy.

I've been to Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) many times in the past and walked through the garage area and such but this was the first time I ever drove through the tunnel to park inside.  How in the world those big rigs for the race cars get through there I have no idea.  They are very narrow tunnels.  When we emerged we found a nice parking spot on the south side of the garage area.  As we got out and started to unload we spotted Jessica, a fellow Cheesy Riders member.  Julian is always excited to see her as he "finds her amusing".  Gotta love that!  Then just a few spots over, fellow Rockwall cyclist Keith and his family pulled in.  This event was a new experience for all of us and excitement was in the air.

Once we had our gear together we rolled over to check-in where they proceeded to mark us and issue timing chips.  As Julian and I were doing the relay, the timing chip acts as the "baton" by getting transferred between us during transitions.  After that we racked our bikes in the transition area and began mental preparations which for me translated to waiting in the bathroom line, missing the first few minutes of the pre-race meeting, and chugging down some water with a Blackberry Jet GU.  Angelia actually managed to make it to the meeting while taking her Espresso Love GU.

Before we knew it, the time to start had arrived.  Women and all relays started in the 3rd wave with a 4 minute delay.  That meant Angelia, Julian, Jessica, and Keith's nephew Tyler would all be taking off together.  As the final wave started I snapped these photos then made my way over to a fence to watch them on the first lap.

In particular I was keeping an eye on Julian for 2 reasons.  First, he's my relay partner so I needed to be ready when he completed the 2 mile run.  Second, he was the youngest, smallest competitor in the field and could receive no help as it is a sanctioned event.  Actually, being the smallest dude out there gave him quite a following.  A lot of strangers were cheering him on and congratulating him by name throughout the day.

Julian did exactly what we had discussed when we made our race plan by completing the first 2mi leg at his 5k pace in 16:46 (a 8:23min/mi pace).  Nice job!  The transition went well as we got the timing chip moved from his ankle to mine and I passed the bike mount line in 55 seconds.

The bike route was outside the speedway so we exited the garage area through the north tunnel --- kinda cool to ride a bike through there.  There were three 5mi loops to complete for a total of 16.27 miles including the part in and out of the speedway.  My plan for this segment was to maintain a heartrate (HR) around 165bpm for 2 laps then ramp it up a bit on the final lap.  I also wanted to keep my cadence in an efficient range, preferably 85 to 90rpm.  The challenge on this particular day was the wind which was strong and consistent not to mention the fact that riding on a street around TMS meant there were never any kind of trees or structures to break up the wind.  The portion with the wind at your back is all too brief when compared to the headwind and crosswind sections.  All things considered I had a very successful bike leg.  My HR average was 165bpm as planned, average cadence was 86rpm, and I was only passed by triathlon bikes, never another road bike.  I did see Angelia while on my final lap and told her she was doing great.  Shortly after that I made the turn back into the garage area and almost had a major mistake as I dismounted at the last possible second before crossing the transition line.  My foot actually hit the ground on the line --- much too close!  The official bike time ended up being 55:16 for a 17.4mph average.  Not what I had in mind originally but good for the conditions.

4 minute delayed start equals finish of 1:31:16

The second transition went equally well as Julian removed the timing chip from my ankle while I racked the bike.  I made sure the chip was secured to him and he was off on the final 2 mile run leg in just 54 seconds.  The plan for this leg was .... there was no plan.  I told him to run it as fast as he could.  As it turns out that was right around his 5k pace again.  Not surprising as this was the first time he's ever had an athletic effort followed by nearly an hour of rest and then suddenly had to run again.  It's a tough thing to ask the body to do.  After his first lap of the mile loop he definitely kicked it up a notch and there were a number of "go Julian!" cheers to be heard.  By the time he crossed the line he was in a dead sprint.  Key word is "dead" as walking a straight line was a challenge for about a minute afterwards.  Second 2mi run leg time was 17:22, very close to the first leg time.  Our total for the event - 1:31:16.  My hope for us had been 1:25 which with a more cooperative Mother Nature would have easily been achieved.  The difference was definitely lost on my bike leg.

As Julian and I made our way to the post-race refreshment area (a.k.a. the garage) we were looking for Angelia's bike in the transition racks to see what her status was.  At that precise moment we spotted her dismounting the bike and heading into transition 2.  Perfect!  We were going to get to watch her run the final 2 miles and complete her first duathlon.  I took the easy way out by relaying with my 9-year old.  She took on the full challenge.  It showed a bit as she had a bit of trouble unclipping her right foot at the dismount line, a sure-fire sign of tired legs.  She's never been a fan of the wind and I knew the ride was a true test.  When asked later she verified that she wasn't all that happy with the ride.  The wind was a big factor in that but it also paved the way to some calf cramps, a numb hand, and even numb toes.  In fact, the numb hand led to her peeling off her gloves with her teeth while riding!  Not sure I could do that though maybe I should have.  My hands numbed on the last lap as well, a product of holding on for dear life in the crosswinds.

Right around this time, Jessica found Julian and I and we walked over to the fence to watch Angelia's run.  Keith and Tyler were over there already having beaten Julian and I in the relay by 6:06.  Angelia appeared to be running fairly well initially but her hamstring tightened after a mile and she had to walk a bit to work it out.  She resumed pace soon enough and found enough energy to surge towards the finish.  In fact, each of her run segments ended up being at a better pace than any prior race of hers.  She met her main goal of finishing and just missed her goal time by about 5 minutes (that darn wind!).  Congrats Angelia!  By this time the last competitor had exited transition so we immediately began gathering our stuff up and rolled the bikes back to the car.  We had to hurry back to the garage though ...... word is there was an award in someone's future!

Tyler, Keith, Angelia, Julian, me, and Jessica

This was where the surprises came in rapid fire fashion.  We missed the first part of the awards ceremony saying bye to Jessica in the parking lot.  Then all of a sudden we hear, "Athena, 39 and under, 2nd place ..... Jessica".  We tell the race director she had left but was a friend of ours and we collected her award.  Angelia frantically texted her about her result.  No sooner had that happened then we heard, "Athena, 40 and over, 2nd place ..... Angelia".  Wow, both of them managed 2nd place finishes - awesome!

I was taking pictures of Angelia when they began announcing the relay results.  "In 2nd place ..... Tri4Success!"  All of a sudden I'm shoving the camera into my wife's hands and picking up my own award along with Julian who received a very loud cheer.  There we are celebrating when, yep, you guessed it - "in 1st place ...... Rockslide".  That's the team name for my riding buddy Keith.  Amazing, each and every one of us walked away with some bling.  Now I'll admit that there may not have been many competitors in our divisions but who cares?  It always feels good to get some bling!

Relay success!

Jessica received Angelia's text and got her bling too.

The Unplanned 5k and a Brick

Yesterday was a bit of a milestone for me.  It was the first extended run I've done outdoors since probably high school.  The training plan called for a nice, easy 30-minute jog, and my last jog was 5 days ago for 20 minutes on the treadmill with a pace of 11:57min/mi.  Clearly I have no sense of pace outdoors because my jog turned into a  5k in 30:18.52.  That's a pace of 9:47min/mi.  Wow, that was unexpected!

Running vs Cycling Stats

Garmin FR60

So yesterday after a week of ice-induced UPS delays I finally got my Garmin FR60.  I chose this particular fitness watch to track my runs and strength workouts due to its compatibility with my existing Garmin HR monitor and GSC10 speed/cadence sensor.  This will give me the ability to better track my overall training load and predict performance.  During a discussion about HR zones relative to perceived running paces (i.e. jogging vs running), I was presented with the phrase, "cyclists and their darn heart-rates!"  The implication was clear, as a cyclist I tend to be too focused on heart-rate which is definitely true to some extent.  However, it's a false perception that I thought could use some clarification.  There are inherent differences in training for the 2 sports that someone newly venturing into the multi-sport arena should be aware of.