Final Preparation for Taidong

I'm so antsy! I hate tapering, it makes me feel lazy and unprepared. All I want to do is go run. I went on a ride and a swim this week, but that's it. 800m and 25km. This week has been super busy for Lauren and I. She has a HUGE bake sale (hundreds of cupcakes, cookies, and brownies), we are leaving for vacation, and we have guests coming upon our return. 

I bought a bike bag! This is my baby as I prepare to put her in.

Pulled my seat post out and definitely have some extra room.

My bike came with a plug to protect my fork. I was going to use tennis balls and a pencil, but this is much more convenient. 

Front wheel goes in first.

Ready to go. Not the most suitable carry on for trains but better than paying extra to ship your bike in the back cars.

I'm shooting for sub-2:40 this weekend. It looks like it'll rain Saturday evening, and might sprinkle Sunday. As long as it's dry for the bike, I could care less how the swim and run weather is.

Coming Events

With a week full of midterms and the heat returning, I've had to do my best to squeeze in some training. The main things keeping me focused on racing is my schedule, and racing videos.

Let's take a look at my race schedule:

4/29 - Taidong 51.5 with a goal for sub-2:40
5/19 - 2012 Hualien International Triathlon - Starts at 12:30pm... in summer... in Taiwan. I look forward to this one because it's around a lake and there's an extra 5km on the bike. 56.5!
6/17 - 2012 Xiuguluan River St. Rafting Triathlon - Yup, white water rapids for 11k, run 12.6, then     cycle 44km. This should be REALLY fun. "Come to be the Raftman" it says.
7/29 - Goleta Beach Triathlon - I'm really excited to compete in California. I haven't seen my side of the  family in 16 months, and more than 18 months by the time I go home. The race is only two hours from my parents house. Plus, racing at the beach in California sounds pretty awesome. I will be racing with my oldest friend Michael Tolman, whom I haven't seen since I got married.

Speaking of marriage, my wife and I have been married for 18 months. At what point are we no longer newlyweds? Here is a photo taken at UNIQLO here in Taichung.

WORKOUTS:

4/16 - Rode up and over Daken. I take the loop from Wen Xin Road to Dong Shan Road, up and around Lian Kang Xiang, and then down to Tai Yuan Road. I can feel my legs getting stronger as I push harder to make it up with more speed. I remember when I couldnt' even do it, I had to rest a few times. I was back home in an hour and ten minutes.

4/16 - With a busy week ahead, I knew I had to squeeze in swimming too. Lauren tagged along. We find that when two white people jump in to share lanes, all the Taiwanese people move to other lanes. What am I supposed to do? It literally happens every time, which is sad, but nice. I swam a warm-up 400 (50-swim and 50-fist), then did 6x100 as fast as I could. I should have finished my original plan of 8x100, but I was beat from my ride today.

Did you watch Boston? If you've never watched the amazing coverage of Ironman Kona, you can see the whole special at this link.

HOT WEEK!

Unlike after my marathon, I decided to hop right back into working out.

4/9 - Rode my mountain bike to school and around the city. This was mostly just to stretch out and not be lazy. After my marathon, I only ran 21 miles in January and about 15 in February. Oops.

4/10 - Ran with Bigfoot. Because of the special schedule we have for midterms week, I had to eat early lunch and didn't have time for dinner. My run was terrible. I ran 6x600, but when it came to the 6x1000 I couldn't hang. I only did four before I gave up. I rested for 30 minutes or so, then played soccer with Elias, mi amigo from Paraguay for about an hour.

4/11 - Swam 1500m faster than race pace. I planned to get my heart rate up and finish with negative splits.  The workout was 27 minutes long. If I could hold that pace for the triathlon, I'd be shaving a full seven minutes off the first of the three disciplines. I plan to swim a 30 minute 1500m at my next tri on 4/29 in Taidong.

4/12 - It was a really hot day and I had all the time in the world. After having some problems pumping up my tires at the motorcycle shop next door I set out to ride my bike to Changhua for work. My record was 52 minutes for the 32km journey. The trip there was terribly hot and I drank almost my entire bottle of Supao. I felt like I was riding slow so I kept pushing, knowing I would be a sweaty mess in the cram school with no air conditioning. When I arrived, I looked at my watch and was pleasantly surprised to see 50 minutes. I walked in the school, and immediately left to try and cool/dry off in the shade. Even after changing into my spare clothes I was gross. The ride home was an uneventful 54 minutes.

In other news, LOOK WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL YESTERDAY! 

I'm assuming the transition times are added to the following event? I thought I had a faster bike and run time. My goals for Taidong this month are 30-minute swim, keep the same bike time, and run a 50-minute 10k. I'm shooting for sub-2:40. I have one more week to work out before I begin to taper. 

Fengyuan Half Marathon

Well, I did it. I hit my goal of a sub-1:40 half marathon. It was a perfect morning. It rained on Friday so all the bad air was gone. The race was near Fu Yang Elementary School (福陽國小）in Fengyuan, which is only a 30 minute drive from my apartment. I woke up at 3:20 to eat and finish getting ready. Lauren and I left the door at 4:50 or so. We knew we were getting close when everyone on scooters had running shoes. We followed the masses and arrived.

Unfortunately for me, the guy who was supposed to take care of registration, didn't. He felt really bad so he gave me his bib. I ran with number 3121 in the 50-55-year old division. After a quick stretch (I'm not a huge fan of long stretching) and a banana, the race started. I was in a terrible starting position, off to the side and a good 50m back. I crossed the starting line at around 40 seconds (official clock time), started my watch, and then was stuck in the slow heard. I knew I wanted sub-1:40, but wanted negative splits. My last half marathon was pretty terrible. I started out way too fast and died at the halfway point. It was a slow haul to the finish. There was no way I was making that mistake again.

The first 12 km was almost completely flat. I really enjoyed running through the village, into the city, and then along the long, wide Fengyuan Road (豐原大道）。I assumed that the course would be two laps (altered slightly) on this great flat course, but I was wrong. The map I looked at a few weeks ago said nothing about elevation or mountains. After the 12km sign, I could see the runners heading East into the mountains. The first little portion was a little uphill, but nothing steep enough to slow me down. Then it came. Mile 9 according to my watch is my first positive split after I got into my groove. I knew if I wanted sub-1:40 it was going to be the battle of the downhill. My slowest point was a 12:30 per mile pace. My calves were screaming at me, but that's when I hit the turnaround point.

The last 2.5 miles were straight downhill. As you can see, I was cruising. 7:15 and 7:03 were my last mile times. I knew I had 16 minutes left and exactly 4 km to go, so I let loose.

I crossed the line with an official time of 1:40:32 and a watch time of 1:39:49. I was 11 seconds away from not hitting my goal. This was seriously a perfect run for me, and that's even factoring the lack of studying or preparing for the course. The speed training workouts have really been paying off.

MILE	TIME	AVG.PACE
1	8:23	8'23"/mi
2	16:05	7'42"/mi
3	23:47	7'42"/mi
4	31:42	7'55"/mi
5	39:33	7'51"/mi
6	47:18	7'45"/mi
7	54:42	7'24"/mi
8	1:02:10	7'28"/mi
9	1:09:56	7'46"/mi
10	1:17:49	7'53"/mi
11	1:25:31	7'42"/mi
12	1:32:46	7'15"/mi
13	1:39:49	7'03"/mi

For those of you who do read Chinese, this is not my name, but I ran with this bib anyways. 

I wanted to smile for my wife and the pictures, but I couldn't.

I love that time, but like my watch's better. 

A half marathon will put some hair on your chest.

My wife took a bunch of artsy photos and has a blog all about traveling in Taiwan. She also documents all my events and does a much better job summarizing than I do. Check her out here.

Taper Week Before Fengyuan 1/2 Marathon

I won't lie, I've been slacking on running. Ever since my marathon 12/31, I have lost interest and desire to run. Don't get me wrong, I've still been training. I still swim and cycle. The longest run I've done since my 26.2 was a 10.23 mile run January 31 and a 6.93 during my triathlon. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm shooting for... well, better than last time at 1:47:22 with an official time of 1:48:05.

4/2/2012 - Went for a swim with my wife. I only did 800m or so. We went in the hot tub and never got back in the pool.

4/3/2012 - Went for a run to test out a gel. 3.64 miles in 27:54 with two walls to jump over and infinite lights to stop at.

4/6/2012 - Swam a 600m warmup (25 fist, 25 swim) with 3x400 at a pretty fast pace. Again, I have no way of gaging how fast I am swimming. 1800m with breaks in 32 minutes is all I know.

I have four more triathlons this summer. April 29th, May 19th, June 17th, and one in California on July 28th. I'm pretty excited about California, but am not looking forward to the cold water. Oh ya, I'm moving home July-August because my wife got an internship in Germany. Congrats Lauren wife lady!

Becoming Aquaman

I've really been trying to buckle down the swimming portion of the triathlon. Luckily, I subscribe to another blog with a writer who is trying to get back into Ironman after accumulating some rust. LAtely, he has been working with a swim coach. I read his advice, do my best to apply the tips given, and put my time in the water. Check him out at Rust to Ironman.

3/23 - I set out to do a 1.5 km swim. With class until 3, errands to run, dinner to eat, and work at 5:30, I didn't have a lot of time. I can't see the clock without my glasses on, so it's hard to tell how long it takes me. I feel a lot stronger now than I did the three times I swam before my first tri. I will NEVER make the mistake of not preparing well enough. After all, proper preparation prevents poor performance.

3/24 - Work started at 10, so I set out at 8:20am to start the 35km ride to Changhua. It rained a little Friday night so the ground was still wet in the morning, which put dew on my leg hairs. The ride there was going to be about 55 minutes, but a marching band crossed the intersection and I had to wait it out. I was in a major hurry on the way home, so I set out with an hour and ten minutes to ride home and shower before my wife picked me up for dinner. I had to run every red light. The push was totally worth it and was a fine workout in preparation for Taidong.

3/27 - Run with Bigfoot. 6x600 and 6x1000. I pushed on the last few 1000's to try and not be last. I actually finished first in one, but only one. Every time I join them I feel even stronger. We'll see in the long run how this focus on speed work turns out.

3/28 - Lauren and I went to the pool together. I had a track meet the next day so I took it easy. My calves were still a little sore from my run with Bigfoot so I focused only on arms.

3/29 - Track meet at Taichung Sport Center. I totally forgot that I signed up for the 200m and the 400m. The day was long, I didn't do well, and had to go to work right after. Now my calves are really burning!

3/30 - I had an hour and a half to finally do some swim intervals. This was my first REAL swim workout. I googled "swim workouts for triathletes" and found plenty of advice. I choose the following workout:
Warm up - 600m. 25m with fists, 25m regular swim. Going from fists to open hands makes me feel like I have paddles!
6x300 at faster than race speed. The last repeat I did 400 to make my final distance 2500m. I feel plenty sore already (my swim was 6 hours ago) and am confident that on my next tri, I won't be dizzy going from the swim to the bike.

I'm debating whether or not I want to ride to work tomorrow. Sleeping in is sounding prettttty nice.

More Tri Training

With the Taidong 51.5 in just over a month and the Fengyuan Half-Marathon in just two weeks, I've been trying to balance a fair amount of cycling and swimming in with running and speed training. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do any brick workouts, but I won't let that get in the way of hitting my goal of hitting 2:45 on my next tri. Shaving six minutes off my last time shouldn't be too hard depending on how much my swim has improved.

March 13 - Another run with Bigfoot. These guys are crazy. I love running with them and feel the burn the night of as well as the three days following the workout. 6x600 and 6x100 with 5k runs both before and after the workout. I must admit my 5k time on the way home was shamefully slow. My calves felt like they were going to explode. About 20 km's total for the night.

March 16 - Another swim. I didn't have a lot of time with work pending, but was able to put in a fast 1000m, the last 300m being high aerobic pace. I still don't have a way to track my swim speed because I can't see the wall clock without my glasses. On March 23 I have a goal to swim 2000m and will keep time.

VOMIT! Yup, I got home from work, didn't feel amazing, and woke up twice to shoot liquid from places. I threw up three times, then had other stomach problems. Sorry to my poor wife who had to wake up to those terrible noises.

March 20 - I had originally planned to run with Bigfoot, but I'm still recovering from the weekend and had Indian food with Coldstone for lunch. Not the best mix! I ran 3.45 miles in 27:41.

March 21 - Took time after class to ride up Daken. It was such a nice ride! I met a few cyclists who told me the mosquitos were really biting today. I took a rest to drink a new gel and swarms of mosquitos started attacking my legs. I did the Wenxin Road/Dong Shan Road loop up to Lian Kang Road, and then down to Tai Yuan Road on the way home. Cars are always surprised when I pass them going downhill. It's so much fun, and probably a little dangerous on a 1.5-car width road, but I can't help it. It's probably a 40km ride, 20 up and 20 down.

I learned than if I turn right here, it turns into a sweet loop.

Chain fell off.

With everything being so aerodynamic, I don't feel the need to shave my legs. 

So that's it. Not as much working out as I'd like, but I still feel confident I'll be able to hit my goal. The hard part is going to be working out in the HOT summer in preparation for the Taiwan Ironman 70.3 which will be on November 3rd or 4th.