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| Over 75 miles with a month to go! |
My other goals aren't far behind as I am on track to finish those early as well.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Swimming Goal Accomplished
At the beginning of the year, I set several goals. One of those goals was to swim at least 75 miles in 2017. As of this morning, I have officially accomplished this goal and it isn't even December yet!
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Des Moines Turkey Trot 2017
It was a cold morning with temperatures in the low 30s and light winds. The conditions were good for me to have a great race but a PR just wasn't meant to be today. My official time was 28:48 which was 35 seconds slower than my current PR of 28:13.
My overall place of 546/2,301 put me in the top 1/4 of all 5K finishers which is one of my best places ever. Although I am disappointed that I didn't break my PR, it really was a good race to end my year.
I have a lot of big plans for next year and "post season" training starts on Monday, but for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on the past racing season. It was my longest season to date and there were a lot of highs and lows along the way. Look for a post reflecting on the top moments of my 2017 racing season in the next week or so.
I hope that you all have a very happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for all of you who take the time to read my posts and provide encouragement along the way.
My overall place of 546/2,301 put me in the top 1/4 of all 5K finishers which is one of my best places ever. Although I am disappointed that I didn't break my PR, it really was a good race to end my year.
I have a lot of big plans for next year and "post season" training starts on Monday, but for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on the past racing season. It was my longest season to date and there were a lot of highs and lows along the way. Look for a post reflecting on the top moments of my 2017 racing season in the next week or so.
I hope that you all have a very happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for all of you who take the time to read my posts and provide encouragement along the way.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Swim Stroke And Planning For Next Season
With my triathlon season a distant memory and my racing season coming to an end a week from today, my focus has started to shift to the off season, or what I'm now calling my post season. I have spent a significant amount of time over the last couple of months reading books and articles from some of the top triathlon coaches in the world to help improve my knowledge base as a self-coached athlete.
My post-season will begin the last week of November and run through the end of January. My focus for that time frame is to focus on my biggest weakness, swimming, and to try a variety of workouts with decreased load and varied intensity. 4 weeks ago I started to work on completely overhauling the pull of my swim stroke. I'll spare the details, but my focus has been around developing a high elbow catch and a better feel for the water. Erin gave me a book on swimming that was written by a former Olympian and I have learned A LOT from that book. The author suggests giving it 2 - 3 months to focus purely on form using a variety of drills and techniques both in and out of the water. I am only 1 month in and happy to already be seeing good progress.
Improving my swim is my biggest goal for the post and pre-season, but that is playing into my larger goals for next year which are starting to take shape. I'm still working out the specifics, but the high level goal is to lose weight and to get faster. It is difficult to focus on all 3 disciplines, so my primary focus will be to improve my swim and run times (the bike is already my strongest leg).
My schedule for next year is starting to take shape as well and I will be racing A LOT. My current plan is to have only 1 "A" race for the year, and that will be the Olympic Distance at the Des Moines Triathlon, which is usually held on Labor Day weekend. In addition to that race, I plan to focus on shorter distances next year for both triathlon and road races. At this point, my season will kick off in April with the Drake Relays Road Races 5k and the Grand Blue Mile.
For triathlon, I am going to try to compete in the entire Heart of America Triathlon Series. That is a series of triathlons around the state of Iowa. The first official race of the season, which doubles as the championship race from the previous season, was the Cyman Triathlon held in September. The series will come back in mid-May and run all summer including about 7 - 8 different triathlons. I competed in a couple of those triathlons last year including Accel in Waterloo as well as Bluff Creek near Ogden. The top 3 overall men and top 3 overall women as well as the top scoring man and woman in each age group will qualify for the championship wave at next years Cyman. I am planning to compete in the sprint distance for all of those races and my goal is to qualify for that championship wave. That is correct, I plan to, at a minimum, win my age group for that series.
I really feel like going into year 3 of triathlon training, I have a good foundation and know what I need to do to improve my speed in all 3 disciplines. The difficult part for me will be staying disciplined enough with my nutrition to lose the weight that I want to. I am currently just over 250 lbs and want to be below 225 lbs going into my first triathlon in May. That is as far as I have planned so far, but am thinking there will be even bigger aspirations by the time the Des Moines Tri comes around.
More to come on goals for next year in the coming weeks along with the plan to get me there. For now, it is back to work because I still have 1 last race left this year.
My post-season will begin the last week of November and run through the end of January. My focus for that time frame is to focus on my biggest weakness, swimming, and to try a variety of workouts with decreased load and varied intensity. 4 weeks ago I started to work on completely overhauling the pull of my swim stroke. I'll spare the details, but my focus has been around developing a high elbow catch and a better feel for the water. Erin gave me a book on swimming that was written by a former Olympian and I have learned A LOT from that book. The author suggests giving it 2 - 3 months to focus purely on form using a variety of drills and techniques both in and out of the water. I am only 1 month in and happy to already be seeing good progress.
Improving my swim is my biggest goal for the post and pre-season, but that is playing into my larger goals for next year which are starting to take shape. I'm still working out the specifics, but the high level goal is to lose weight and to get faster. It is difficult to focus on all 3 disciplines, so my primary focus will be to improve my swim and run times (the bike is already my strongest leg).
My schedule for next year is starting to take shape as well and I will be racing A LOT. My current plan is to have only 1 "A" race for the year, and that will be the Olympic Distance at the Des Moines Triathlon, which is usually held on Labor Day weekend. In addition to that race, I plan to focus on shorter distances next year for both triathlon and road races. At this point, my season will kick off in April with the Drake Relays Road Races 5k and the Grand Blue Mile.
For triathlon, I am going to try to compete in the entire Heart of America Triathlon Series. That is a series of triathlons around the state of Iowa. The first official race of the season, which doubles as the championship race from the previous season, was the Cyman Triathlon held in September. The series will come back in mid-May and run all summer including about 7 - 8 different triathlons. I competed in a couple of those triathlons last year including Accel in Waterloo as well as Bluff Creek near Ogden. The top 3 overall men and top 3 overall women as well as the top scoring man and woman in each age group will qualify for the championship wave at next years Cyman. I am planning to compete in the sprint distance for all of those races and my goal is to qualify for that championship wave. That is correct, I plan to, at a minimum, win my age group for that series.
I really feel like going into year 3 of triathlon training, I have a good foundation and know what I need to do to improve my speed in all 3 disciplines. The difficult part for me will be staying disciplined enough with my nutrition to lose the weight that I want to. I am currently just over 250 lbs and want to be below 225 lbs going into my first triathlon in May. That is as far as I have planned so far, but am thinking there will be even bigger aspirations by the time the Des Moines Tri comes around.
More to come on goals for next year in the coming weeks along with the plan to get me there. For now, it is back to work because I still have 1 last race left this year.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
5K Time Trial
Today marked the half way point of my 8 week training plan. That means that it was time to run a 5K time trial to evaluate my progress toward a 5K PR. The result of my time trial run was a new 5K PR
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| New 5K PR |
My time of 28:13 bested my previous PR of 28:39, set in September 2016. With just under 4 weeks to go until race day, I'm certainly on the right track!
Sunday, October 15, 2017
IMT Des Moines Marathon Relay
For the second year in a row, I competed in the marathon relay at the IMT Des Moines marathon, and for the second year in a row, we had a blast on race day. The relay is the same distance and course as the marathon, but is divided up between 5 team members. This year's team consisted of 3 returning team members, Megan (a co-worker of mine at Pioneer), Erin (my lovely wife), and me. In addition, we had 2 newcomers in Dan (Megan's husband) and Justin (a friend of mine from middle school and high school).
The weather could not have been more different than last year. Last years race was humid with fog and got quite warm by the end of the race. This year it was cold and very windy. Erin started us off running the first 4 miles that included a big hill at the end. I ran the next 6 miles before handing off to Dan to run mile 10 - 15 that included a lap around the blue oval at Drake Stadium. Megan took the baton from Dan to run the big down hill into Water Works Park before handing off to our final runner, Justin, at mile 20. Everyone on the team ran fast today and we ended up finishing in 4:20:02.
Time and pace is a personal thing, so I can only truly speak for myself, but I was EXTREMELY happy with how I ran today. My average pace for my 6 miles was 9:39/mi which beat the 9:45/mi that Erin challenged me to this year. In addition, it was faster then the 9:53/mi that I averaged for my 6 mile leg last year and is the fastest 6 miles that I have run in my entire life. If that didn't make me happy enough, when I got home and uploaded from my watch to Garmin Connect, I saw that my leg included 352 feet of elevation gain. That is 120 feet more than the route that I ran last year.
The weather could not have been more different than last year. Last years race was humid with fog and got quite warm by the end of the race. This year it was cold and very windy. Erin started us off running the first 4 miles that included a big hill at the end. I ran the next 6 miles before handing off to Dan to run mile 10 - 15 that included a lap around the blue oval at Drake Stadium. Megan took the baton from Dan to run the big down hill into Water Works Park before handing off to our final runner, Justin, at mile 20. Everyone on the team ran fast today and we ended up finishing in 4:20:02.
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| Freezing and wishing the race would start |
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| Crushed it! |
Transition 2 and 3 were less than a mile apart so after I handed off to Dan, we walked to the next transition. With about 40 minutes to wait, I noticed that the water station that was at this transition was very understaffed and they were struggling to even get cups filled to keep up with the runners coming by. At this point, the marathoners were almost 15 miles into the race and I know from experience what can happen when hydration is compromised. Since we were waiting anyways, I decided to spend the next 30 minutes or so helping to hand water to the runners as they came by.
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| Working the water station |
The sun finally came out late in the race, and we all joined Justin around mile 26 to cross the finish line "together" (ok, so maybe we spread out a little bit, but we all found each other after finishing).
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| The proud finishers |
I can't state enough how fun it is to compete in a relay. This will most likely remain a staple on my race calendar every year, and it has me looking for more relay opportunities. In fact, I'm currently working to put a team together for the Market to Market relay next May. 75 miles from Jefferson, IA to Des Moines, IA split between 6 - 8 runners. In fact, I still have a few spots to fill out, so if this is something that you would be interested in doing, be sure to let me know. Runners of all experience levels are welcome!
It is hard for me to believe that we are already half way through the month of October. With only 1 race remaining on my schedule for the year, things are really winding down and the time for reflection, as well as planning for next year is upon us. For now though, it is time to get back to work.
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