Better late than never…this is a race I did almost 4 months ago.

To cap of my trip to Wisconsin, I took part in the Spirit of Racine Half Ironman with 2000 random midwesterners willing to get up at 5 am and jump in Lake Michigan.

I did one Half Ironman last year, and it was a painful experience. I ran out of fuel about 5 hours in and struggled to the finish. My goal was to finish much more gracefully, and beat my time from last year. I was successful in those two goals and had a great race.

Death march up the beach…

A cool aspect about this race is that it was a point-to-point swim, so not curving around buoys and swimming laps in a lake. But that mean you have to walk to the start–in this case 1.2 miles up the beach. It was a beautiful beach, though, and it was cool walking to the foggy start with 2,500 people.

Game face…3 minutes to start.

The start was delayed because of the fog. Not affecting the start time was the 55 degree water temperature. The beach was abuzz with conversation about how cold the water was. And it was really, really, cold. I saw a few people with dish-washing gloves on to keep their hands warm!

Hey, that wasn’t so bad!

There were three aspects of the swim that made it the best open water swim I’ve ever done:

1. Swimming stright is just plain more fun than swimming in circles.
2. When you swim point-to-point, there is no bunching up at the corners!
3. The water was so clear I could see the sand bottom–I just lined myself up with the ripples and used them like lane lines.

The swim was my best leg relative to the field. I really enjoyed it!

I hit the bike and ate and drank like crazy. I was determined to fuel up properly and did a good job staying on my eating schedule. The course was pretty good–through the city of Racine and then out on rural highways. But Wisconsin gets cold in the winter, and years of freezing and thawing causes concrete roads to develop big cracks every 20 feet or so. It was no fun biking 56 miles with that periodic jarring. Ugh. I was glad when it was over!

The last quarter mile was a bit of a haze…

The run was great, if a bit hot. By the time I finished it was 85 degrees. But I kept a steady pace on the two-loop course, and kept in the game by shouting out supportive comments to other runners. I’m not usually very talkative, but I’ve found it’s a great distraction, and I think most people don’t find it too annoying.

The last quarter mile was really hard, but I guess that’s a sign of leaving everything on the course. I was really pleased to have the pain be so short-lived. Much better than last year. I got a PR by 40 minutes, and I’ve never been so pleased to finish in 516th place!

Overall Place: 516
Age Group Place: 89
Overall Time: 05:17:36
Swim: 00:29:52 (554th)
T1: 02:13
Bike: 02:40:59 (652nd)
T2: 01:41
Run: 02:02:50 (650th)

Another reason I love where I live–Discovery Park and it’s miles of running trails right in the middle of Seattle.

A week after the Wautoma tri we made the hour drive further north to Steven’s Point for the 19th annual (just missed the big round number) running of the Lactic Edge Sprint triathlon.

Fresh off my first podium appearance I wanted to do well but suspected I would be outclassed. Steven’s Point is a bigger town with a university, the race was on a Saturday, and it was an established race.

It turned out to be larger, but more loosely run than our previous race. It wasn’t chip timed, and it wasn’t the standard sprint distances, clocking in with a 500m swim, 18 mile bike, and a 3 mile run.

We swam in the Wisconsin river, which was wind-whipped and tamarack stained. You couldn’t see the bottom, even in 6 inches of water. The swim started up-wind and up-current, which wasn’t the most pleasant experience I’ve ever had. I self-selected into the elite wave, not knowing if I was seriously over estimating my relative speed.

I hit the bike somewhere in the middle of the pack of my wave. On the relatively long bike leg, I got passed by about 4 guys. Again, I’m a slow runner, so I knew I wasn’t going to pick up places on the run. But I only lost two positions. One of the guys who passed me was Brian, the guy I passed in the Wautoma tri. Way to get me back!

The finish was a real joy. I was very happy to be done racing and I crossed the line with my kids, Malcolm and Louise, which was really fun. The crowd cheered for them and they were all smiles!

I ended up 2nd in my age group and 18th overall. Prior to the Wautoma race I’d never cracked the top 10 in my age group, so I was really happy. I won a beer glass with the race name on it!

Overall Place: 15
Age Group Place: 2
Overall Time: 1:22:53.6
Swim: 7:42.9
Bike: 50:59.4
Run: 24:11.3

While I look incredibly tired, I want to contrast that with this shot of my wife looking like she’s having the time of her life.

Well, it turns out she was having a blast! Beth had a great race, finished very strong and experienced some great camaraderie along the way. Hopefully we’ll do more triathlons together soon. I want to thank my parents for bringing the kids up for the race–it was really fun to have a cheering section!

He felt the full weight of middle age shake his exhausted frame as the fog poured across the muddy blanket of ground his feet were soaking on in the early morning haze. The attendant marked his wife, first on the upper arm, then on her lower calf making sure to caress her flesh with meaty paws that deliberately stroked his love a little harder than necessary for the benefit of the onlookers. In the midst of the confusion, he ran into a childhood friend. They embraced, not knowing when their paths might cross again. The embrace reminded him that life was coursing through his body, if only to soon be tested in a way that it had never been tested before. The muck of the wet ground added to the stench of slaughter and decay coming from the makeshift toilets all the gape eyed men and women were clamoring to use before they submitted to the pain and anguish that they all had hoped to avoid but knew was on the horizon in the hours to come. As he turned to walk to the edge of the icy water to see her wife herded into a bitter cold bath along with a torrent of writhing bodies, he thought he might be in hell.

While I was in Wisconsin doing triathlons, I ran into my old friend John West. He’s a writer, and has detailed his race experience with a scholarly treatise on the dark underside of the Ironman movement.

Great to see you John!

Thanks Tate!

Here are some things I learned:

• I’m better at short races than long ones
• 55 degree water doesn’t really bother me
• Once you try a singlet, you’ll never go back

Here’s my first race report.

God Bless America Super-Sprint Triathlon, Wautoma, Wisconsin

The city of Wautoma, in central Wisconsin, has a population of about 3000, but that probably increases 5 fold in the summer when all the lakes are filled with visitors from the south–mainly Milwaukee and Chicago. We vacationed about 10 minutes from Wautoma, and our visit happened to coincide with the 3rd annual running of the God Bless America Triathlon on the 4th of July.

I surely couldn’t pass up doing a race with a name like that, only 10 minutes from our vacation cottage. So my wife and I signed up for this insanely short race–200m swim (!), 9 mile bike, and 2 mile run.

It turned out to be a lot of fun, and is probably the only triathlon I’ll ever do with a 7 foot tall fiberglass steer in the transition area. About two hundred hardy souls braved the 75 degree water of Silver Lake, and took in the beautiful rolling countryside around the lake.

I’ve never been anywhere near the front of a triathlon. I’m always solidly in the middle of the pack. I’ll paraphrase Joe Friel–one thing you can’t control in Triathlon is who else is going to show up at the race. I’m used to getting my butt kicked by Seattlite triathletes with their $7000 bikes and high VO2 maxes. But this race was on a holiday, in northern Wisconsin, and was crazy-short, so maybe I had a chance to do well.

I can’t really describe what the swim was like. It was over in 3 minutes. I just flailed as fast as I could. I was 7th out of the water and 4th out of transition on the bike. I moved up to second and was a couple bike lengths behind the leader and the motorcycle escort for a mile before he slowly pulled away from me. I ended the bike second overall. Unheard of!

I’m not a fast runner, so I’m used to getting passed on the run. But I vowed that I could go really hard for 2 miles–only 2 miles! I made it about a mile before I was passed, putting me in 3rd place. After the turn around I saw that the guy in 4th place wasn’t far behind me. He caught me with about half a mile left.

But, I didn’t let him go. I stayed behind him and did something I’ve never done before, I passed him back, with about 100m left. I really wanted to place, since I wasn’t sure I’d ever have the opportunity again. I mean, I didn’t want to have to travel to Cutbank, Montana for a race in February or something like that…

Right after I passed him, I saw Beth running out the other way and gave her a high five, even though I was dying. I’m sure that is what kept him from catching me. (He’d have his revenge in a week…)

Beth had a great race even though she hadn’t been training for it. She got really fired up by the racing aspect and remembered how much fun she had in her previous tris.

I ended up 3rd by 3 seconds! I won a sweet t-shirt with a red white and blue eagle head on it, a trophy, and 16 ounces of Heed gel. The race was well-run and a ton of fun. I hope to place in a race again, but I will have to search out the rare opportunities like this one, and hope all those athletes faster than me are at a barbecue or something.

Overall Place: 3
Age Group Place: 1
Overall Time: 41:57
Swim: 3:12
T1: 1:11
Bike: 23:26
T2: 0:46
Run: 13:22 (fastest I’ve run since a dog chased me when I was 10)

The race has 5 stages starting at Snoqualmie Pass at 3000′ and ending in Ballard, at sea level, a mile from my house. Most competitors are part of 5 person teams, but a few hardy souls attempt the race solo.

My friend Brian Bruininks was one of those people who ran it solo. I had the pleasure of running along with him for moral support the last 6 miles of the race, and watching as he won it all! It was truly an inspiring performance and I’m going to try to take some of his ability to “suffer well” into my next few races this summer.

Incredible work, Brian!

Also congrats to Pat Shaw who’s relay team broke the top 10 overall! Nice work Pat!

I am really happy with my results:

Total Time: 2:27:23
Overall place: 28th
Place in my age group: 5th

Swim split: 0:25:54
Overall Swim place: 38th

Bike split: 1:07:32
Overall bike place: 22nd
Place after the bike: 20th

Run split: 0:49:30
Overall run Place: 58th

The swim went fine. Last time I did the race I breathed every other stroke the whole .9 miles. This time I relaxed a bit and did some breathing every third stroke when things opened up a bit. The new wetsuit was great, and I hardly noticed the frigid water. I knocked almost 4 minutes off my time from last year.

I love my bike! At multiple points during the 28 mile ride I thought or even said aloud how cool a machine this bike is. It’s amazing how little energy is wasted converting muscle contraction to rolling. I hit 39.9 mph on one descent, and the bike was solid as a rock. What a blast! I was shocked to learn after the race that I was only 5 minutes off the best time overall. I’ve been focusing on the bike leg in my training, but I didn’t expect it to pay off this much. I averaged 24.6 mph.

The first mile of the run was painful. It was also painful to be passed by so many runners! In the swim you can’t really tell how well you’re doing because you’re underwater. In the bike, I don’t get passed a lot. But in the run, you hear people coming up behind you, then they pass you, and then you watch them slowly pull away. I ran around 8 minute miles, which was great for me, but I need to get to 7 minute miles to be really competitive, I think. I’m not sure that’s even possible!

I had the pleasure of traveling down and racing with John, a friend of mine from previous work experience. It’s a ton more fun doing an event with friends than going it alone. You get to tell all the race stories to someone who cares!

That’s a summary of my triathlon training plan for 2008 published as a Google gadget. I built a Google spreadsheet to plan my year, based largely on Joe Friel’s methodology.

I estimate my weekly hours, marking the events I want to race. Then breakdown the weekly estimates into real workouts. Then track the actual workouts.

If you want to build your own plan, I’ve published a copy of it here. Take it and make it your own!

Update: Here’s an XLS download as well.

And then tell me you won’t hit me on my commute…

Thanks Brooks!

It was a nice morning, and it wasn’t raining. It was a damp Northwest 50 degrees, so it felt pretty cold. I did an Olympic distance race on this course in June and it was cold and raining, so dry was a vast improvement.

I was wearing a tri-specific wetsuit for the first time, so I didn’t know what to expect. When the gun went off, I bobbed to the surface like a cork. The suit kept me in perfect swimming form the whole time–thanks Blue Seventy!

The swim went really well. I felt good and navigated fairly well. I found myself thinking about things other than not drowning, which was good. The field was smaller than the tris I did earlier in the year, so I wasn’t bumping into people after the first quarter mile.

I came out of the water feeling great after 0:35:40–faster than I had expected. At the bike, I decided to dress warm as I had had two experiences this season with very cold bike rides and I did not care to repeat. I wore my neoprene biking jacket and lobster gloves. That was the best decision I made all day. I was gloriously comfortable for the entire ride.

The ride was really a blast. My bike is a speed machine, and there is nothing like freshly paved rural roads and surrounding competitors to make you go fast. The first 28 mile loop went well. I felt great, and was smiling thinking just how much further I had to go. I kept telling myself to take it easy on the second loop, and I did. My second half of the bike was definitely slower than the first. I have no idea by how much–I came in with a total bike time of 2:52:00, an average speed of 19.5 mph.

On the bike I drank Nuun and ate Shot Blocks. I ate on a schedule and tried to drink all the time. My stomach started to feel a little weird so I stopped eating with about 45 minutes left on the bike. I ate some more on the run, and generally my nutrition was pretty good, I think, for my first real effort at it.

I got to the run and pretty quickly realized I was in for quite a challenge. I’ve only ever run 13 miles once–I had more training planned but had some injuries in August that kept me off the roads. I expected the first mile or so to be a slog after having been on the bike for 3 hours. I started to feel better and my first couple miles were at a 9 minute pace. I walked at every water station, taking a minute or so to rest and drink. They had 4 stations on the course, and I damn well visited them all.

At 5 miles there was a false flat that took it out of me. It was about a mile long and made me feel like I was dragging a spare tire on a rope. I think this was the first time I walked out of fatigue. I ran some more, then walked some more, and them came to the 6 mile mark where they had inserted a very large hill. I walked to the top, and ran down then continued to run back down the false flat I had trudged up before. At the 7 mile mark, I first felt an overwhelming desire to stop running and take a nap by the side of the road. At one point I was running with my eyes closed, or I should say shuffling.

It wasn’t really pain, just this heavy feeling that I could barely resist. I’ve never experienced it before. I mean, every run I do I wish I could stop running, but this was qualitatively different, like irresistible sleep. So I walked some more, then ran a bit, then walked some more.

The course was out-and-back, meaning that there was a constant stream of runners on the other side of the street running in the other direction. Lots of waving and words of support was going on–that was nice. As I was dealing with my inner struggle to keep running, and being surprised at just how hard it was, I had the realization that everyone else was somewhere in their own struggle. Whether they looked great or were struggling, we all were pushing ourselves just for the sake of doing it. It was a voluntary test were had all decided to put ourselves through, for our own reasons. And we were all in the midst of it, supporting each other, and counting out the steps and the minutes with some goal in mind.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, as I had other things to deal with, but since the race I’ve been thinking about it more. I was in the midst of really intense personal struggle on a vast scale. Amazing.

At 8 miles, I felt some pain in my right foot where I had injured it in August. The pain wasn’t intense, so I walked a bit and then ran. I was dull, so I decided not to abandon and keep going.

The 11 mile mark was pretty close to the park entrance, and I did the math and knew there was some sort of loop in the course that I didn’t know about, but my mind was trying to convince me that we were going directly to the finish line and that somehow that would miraculously add up to 13.1 miles. But no, they brought us to within 300 feet of the finish, where you could hear them calling out the finishers, and then sent us off on a mile and a half loop around the lake. Cruel!

Only a mile left, but I couldn’t run. I ended up walking probably half of that last mile. I just had nothing left. I started running as I recognized how close I was to the finish. I crossed over to the announcer saying, “Steve Andersen of Seattle, 70.3 miles…Finished!” 2:17:00 for the run, or 10 min pace. My total time was 5:57:00–I had guessed I could do it in 6 hours.

I was so glad to be done I didn’t really get excited. Relief was the primary feeling, followed by hunger. I ate a ton immediately and discovered that it was really hard to get up from the picnic bench–my legs didn’t really work. The person serving food asked me if I was OK.

Unfortunately the desire to nap continued on the drive home–next year I’ll get a ride or at least a triple latte before I get on the road!

I’ve been asked, will I do another one? Maybe, but with more training. If I had to answer today, I’d say I’ll focus on Olympic distance because of my limited training hours, what with work and kids and all. But I’m so glad to have done it. It was a struggle with myself for the last couple hours, and it was so nice to cross the finish line.

A special thanks to my wife and family who put up with all the hours of training. I couldn’t have done it without your support!

I’ll write a longer post later, when I’m less completely spent, but a couple key thoughts:

• How the hell do people do full Ironman races? Seriously.
• Blue Seventy wetsuits make you go really, really fast
• I found I can come up with possible solutions to a Plone/Salesforce/Paypal integration problem we’re up against, all while swimming in a pack of triathletes. Geek.
• Triathlon bikes are some of the coolest machines I know. They are speed demons and so efficient. What a blast to ride one.
• Don’t drive yourself home from your next half Ironman–it’s hard to stay awake.

Now to bed.

It will consist of:

1. 1.2 mile swim – not very painful
2. 56 mile bike – fairly painful
3. 13.1 mile run – I suspect this will be very painful!

My training was right on track until August, when I got derailed by a series of events. A bike crash, a tooth extraction, a sprained foot, and finally tonsillitis. So I’ve basically had a 6 week taper. Before that I put in 13 miles in the pool, 253 miles running, and 892 miles on the bike.

I think I’ll be OK, but the biggest concern is that foot pain will show up at some point in the run. I did 3 miles on the treadmill today and didn’t feel a thing, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

It’s going to be a bit cold at race-time, and it might be raining. So think warm thoughts and wish me luck!

And how about this for a morning swim? It’s exactly a mile around the shoreline. And it’s 80 degrees…

I didn’t have my bike, which was a real drag with the roads the just beckoning, so I ended up swimming every day. It was fun to focus on just two sports.

I’ve been running a lot in my triathlon training and I’ve been listening to podcasts on my hour plus runs. This American Life, of course, but my favorite is one called Radiolab out of WNYC in New York. It’s an hour long show that takes broad topics and looks into the current state of our scientific understanding of them, and does it in a highly produced format.

It’s a killer show and I’ve found myself looking forward to my runs just because I’ll get to listen to another Radiolab. I’ve been talking about the thought-provoking topics so much at work that I’m sure they’re all as sick of me talking about it as they were sick of me talking about Critical Mass 6 months ago. Oh well, at least I don’t talk about triathlon at work…

Try out Radiolab–you’ll dig it.