After 3 days of tonsillitis and two days of antibiotics I feel well enough to go out for a short training ride on the bike.

It helps that it’s 25 degrees and sunny out there.

Let’s roll…

The only thing about having the flu is that laying on the couch give me a bit of time to do a write up of yesterdays New Jersey Kick Off Triathlon. It’s not the 65 degree water that is too blame for my condition. All of the family is more or less in the same state, so while the kids are coughing and watching “How to Train a Dragon” on the floor I get to stay on the couch with my laptop.

Yesterday started out at 4am. I could already feel that my body wasn’t 100%. I had that slight sensation of being a bit “off” but when a race is up, you don’t turn around and stay in bed.

I arrived at the race at 5:30 at what was felt like night, but after 10 min the first rays of sun started to come out and I could see that this would a beautiful day to race.

I got my area set up and got on my new wetsuit – quite a feat considering the very tight fit. But with some help from some of the co-tri guys out there I got the last 5 inches of zipper closed. Not all that was left was to try out the water. At around 65 degrees (18 Celsius) the water was the same (or a perhaps even a bit warmer) than the water back in Denmark on a typical summer day. It was a very interesting feeling swimming in a wetsuit and I could definetely feel the uplift from the suit.

After 10 min in the water, the race (and my second open water triathlon) started. I started out in 3-4 line and the first 100 yards felt fine. There was a lot of traffic but even though there was quite a bit of pushing and hitting I didn’t bother mee too much.

I'm the one with the blue cap…

It wasn’t a very pretty swim. It more resembeled a desperate try to stay afloat. I didn’t get my breathing or arm movement right and after 200 yards I was out of breath… Bummer!

I had to do 100 yards of breaststroke being really angry with myself that I once againg was unable to keep up with the pack. But I realized that being to finish in a slower time was better than drowning on the spot. So I continued another 50 yards of breaststroke before I got my breath back and went back to the freestyle. At this point my body was much more comfortable and I was able to finish the swim doing freestyle in a relaxed pace and even pass one or two swimmers. I was 58th! in 14:00 min. out of the water. Not my finest hour, but I was glad that I had made the final strech doing freestyle.

The transition went fine with the only delay being some problems getting my one foot out of the wetsuit. It cost me 10-15 secs but overall I was pretty happy with T1 (1:15).

On the bike I soon got a nice rythm and started reeling in some of the guys in front of me. It was a very nice day with sun and no winds and a few km from the turn around I got a look at the first few guys. I kept counting riders and realized that I was around 30th at the turnaround. That wasn’t really satisfactory so I upped the pace on the way back towards T2 and passed 3-4 more guys before entering T2. At this point my legs felt fine even though my lungs were starting to remind my that the pace perhaps was a bit too fast. I ended up with doing the 22nd fastest time (28:31).

After T2 I went out on the first 2k feeling absolutely terrible. I had a lot of pain in my chest/stomach (not heart related tough) and my legs were not going as fast as I wanted. After 500m I had already gotten passed by a guy from my age group and at 2k he had 60-80m on me.

I instead tried to keep up with a guy from the 25-29 age group that kept the 4:25 pace. At that point I was sure that I basically had to settle with my slow 4:25km pace and the guy from my age group in front of me would be impossible to catch. But somehow my mind decided otherwise and told I told myself that I had to up the tempo even if that meant a risk of blowing up on the last km’s. So I did just that, moving away from the guy that I had been following and all of a sudden the distance towards my fellow age group rival didn’t expand. In fact at the turn around point at approx. 2.9 km it had descreased to 40-50m and all of sudden reeling him in didn’t feel impossible. At 4k my tempo was 4:12. At 5k it was 4:03 and all of a sudden I had passed my main competitor. As I passed him he said some encouraging words (Thanks!) and I answered him by going as fast as I could the last .75km doing it at a 3:56 pace. The time at the finishline read 1:08:46 with my run baing at 24:22 (27th fastest).

So overall a place as number 24 and a 3rd place in my age group.

On one hand I couldn’t have been happier with the mental side of the race, being able to harden up on both the swim and espicially the last part of the run.

On the other I feel terrible based on the slow swim that I had and my inability to keep up and finishing the swim part without relapsing into breaststroke.

And I did get a very nice beer glass for my effort that I instantly used for the one weekly beer that I allow myself. Thanks to JS Multisport for putting on an excellent race. Especially the chocolate cake at the end was a nice touch!

2nd from the left…

Next race is in 3 weeks! See you there!

I am doing the Jersey Shore Kick Off Tri this Saturday: 0.4 mile swim, 10 mile bike and 3.5 mile run.

It will be first open water swim in 2012 (and only my 2nd overall) so I am pretty excited to see what the experience will be. It’s going to be a in-water start and I am sure that the first wave will be going at it pretty fast. However my strategy is that I gotta try and latch on to the last part of the first pack if I am going to make any result in the overall race. A quick look down the start list shows that around 18 guys in my age group and around 200 participants overall, so being in the top 5 age group is my goal considering the relatively longer swim compared to the tri in Riverwinds.

One thing I learned I Riverwinds is to clean up my transition area in order to get better transitions and faster T1 and T2 times. Last time it was way too cluttered with towel, powerbars, arm-warmers, etc. It made me forget my race belt for the run so this time I’ll try and keep it nice and tidy: Just the helmet/glasses on the bike and running shoes, racebelt and a bottle to rinse my sandy feet with on the transition matt.

Its another early start at 6:50 and with another long 1:10 hour drive, it’s rise and shine at 4:15… ON A SATURDAY!

In order to get a bit more structure to my training and set up a real training schedule towards my goal, The US Nationals in August, I started to look into online training plans and books that could help me out.

After spending most part of a day searching online and coming up empty handed for the right plan for myself, I finally came across a book by Matt Fitzgerald: Triathlete Magazine’s Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide that had no less than 40! plans (More IS Better!) covered. 10 of these were for the Olympic distance so with this downloaded to the Ipad I started mapping out my 16 week schedule.

The Olympic programs are divided into 10 levels with level 1 being for people just wanting to complete an Olympic tri with the minimal amount of training and level 10 being for the elite level triatlete (peaking with 13.000 yards of swimming, 8.30 hours of cycling and 4.30 hours of running). I stuck my neck out and set myself at level 7 with 9 workouts pr. week and peaking at 8,700 yards of swimming, 5.45 hours on the bike and 3.30 hours of running.

Luckily the plan starts of a bit more comfortable with 5.500 yards of swimming, 4 hours of cycling and 2.11 hours of running.

The level 7 program seemed as the right one as I already was already doing around 4-5 hours of cycling a week and 2 hours of running. Allthough I was doing 3 weekly swims I wasn’t doing more than 3.000 yards, but adding the last 2.500 yards didn’t seem like a problem.

Last week was the first week of my plan and looking at my distribution of sessions it looked like this:

Running: 2 sessions. 1.25 hours. 17 km
Swimming: 3 sessions. 2.5 hours. 5.5 km
Biking; 3 sessions. 4.24 hours. 128 km

I had to give up my Saturday running session as I was home alone with the kids (The wife was in Denmark) but all in all I was pretty satisfied with the week. At this part of the training plan most of the workouts are pretty easy being at a moderate intensity level.

Physically I felt fine. No soreness or pains except for a 5 min of on and off groin pains that came during me just sitting around in the couch.

Mentally I also felt fine. I made sure to up my amount of sleeping, going to bed around 10pm at most nights getting my 8-8.5 hours of sleep.

I am now in my 2nd week and things are still looking bright. I will update you on my training schedule in a few weeks.

The best step is of course to get a coach and attend some Master swim classes and I am also in the process of doing this. However, as with most things a coach and master classes can cosst you quite a bit of money…

So the second best thing to do is scouting the web for any good sources that can help you out and I just found one: The YouTube Channel of The Race Club.

The Race Club (www.theraceclub.net) is owned and operated by Gary Hall, M.D., his wife Mary and members of their family. Dr. Hall is a three-time Olympic medalist (1968, 1972 and 1976) who was twice voted the World’s greatest male swimmer in 1969 and 1970. So I guess his credentials are ok…

On their YouTube channel they go through some of the drills that can help you become a faster swimmer and they also go through some of the mechanics and physics behind the techniques. Its pretty good stuff all explained thouroughly by Gary Hall and shown (watch out for the nerd factor going through the roof) in nice high resolution videos.

Enter the Saucony Kinvara 2 – one of the most praised running shoes of 2010-2012. I am not going to so a review of the shoe – that has been done by so many other people but I will keep you updated on my venture into the lower heel-to-toe drop of 4mm that could help me transfer into a more natural stride.

I have already done 2 x 45 min treadmill runs in them and my initial thoughts are that the shoes are really light (253 grams in my size 12.5) – almost as light as my Adidas Adixero Feather that I use for races. They are however a totally different shoe. The Adidas is firm and springy and tends to beat my lower legs up when I run more than 15k in them. The Kinvara seems much comfortable both on the upper part and in the sole. And lastly the Kinvara seems to be a lot more durable than the Adidas that tends to feel as if I am tearing the upper part apart every time I lace them up.

Oh – and if you need new running shoes the Kinvara 2 is on sale at most online shops for $50-60. That’s a great deal!

The start was a bit early and with an hour drive I woke up at 4.35 surprisingly fresh. I had also gone to bed at 9.30 so I guess I had my share of sleep. As always breakfast was oatmeal and raisins supplied with a nice large gulp of Gatorade (not in the same bowl as the oatmeal though).

With the new Kent album turned up rather loud so I wouldn’t fall asleep I set off towards south Jersey and at 6 am I hit the Riverwinds golf resort. At 6 am it was still only 4 degrees Celsius so I set up my transition area with an extra gillet and my arm warmers.

This being only my second triathlon I found myself obsesssing quite a bit on whether to turn my bike one or the other way on the bike rack but after switching the bike back and forth 4 or 5 times I finally and set up my bike and the rest of my transition area.

Now all that was left before the race was to wait and relax (and pee around 5 times). Luckily the wait could be done inside the pool area where it was a comforting 72 degrees.

The pool swim was done in an 8 lane 25 yard pool in a serpent style swim where you would swim one lane, cross underneath the lane divider and do the next lap in that lane. After 8 lanes you had moved from the start on the left side of the pool to the exit on the right side of the pool. Everyone was seeded by their own estimated 200m time and not being a very strong swimmer (yet) I had put in a conservative 3:30 estimate which made me enter the water as the 71st of around 300 racers.

The swim went well. I was a bit worried about switching lanes but it it wasn’t a problem. I had one guy passing me and I passed another swimmer so my seed was apparently pretty good and I came out of the water with the 65th fastest time (At least I know where I need to focus my training).

The weather was still pretty cold so I opted to put on my arm warmers in T1 which proved to be a bit difficult with the wet arms, but as I found out later, the extra 10-12 secs were well spent. My T1 time was 14th best.

On the bike I felt good. I soon started reeling in the people in front of me and kept a steady pace without overreaching. The course was flat with few corners and no wind so it was actually a nice ride execept for the cold. Before I knew it I was back at T2 and running off on the 5k run. I hadn’t had my watch on my bike ride so this was the first time I actually had a closer look at my pace. The first km was done in 4:13 even though my legs and feet were pretty frozen from the bike ride. I tried to speed up my cadence to get the blood in my legs moving and after the second km in 4:12 the legs felt good and I upped my pace doing the last 3k in 12 min finishing 9th overall on the run in 20:24, beating my 5k PR with 6 secs…

The result was an overall 6th place and a 1st place in my 35-39 age group. My ambitions before the start had been an overall top-10 finish/ top 3 in my age group so as I laid in the sun after the race I felt pretty good.

Reflecting on my race I see a lot of room for improvement in my swim and transitions (I forgot my race number for my run) and I should perhaps have pushed a bit more on the bike. On the other had then maybe I wouldn’t have done such a great run.

Next race is in two weeks, so there is time still to improve my swim. Actually I am off the the pool in the morning…

Race result:
200m Swim: 3:40
T1: 1:23
10.3 mile bike: 27:54
T2: 0:56
3.1 run: 20:24

Total: 54:14

Normally I just do my pool swims in my regular Nike swim trucks that I got for 10 bucks at Macy’s. They are nice and roomy and can be used for a day at the beach as well.

I do have a Zoot Tri suit that I use for competition, but I never tried it on in the pool until today.

With my Tri suit on I shaved 8 seconds off my 100m intervals and when I put on my swim cap I took off another 2 secs.

So I guess that the equipment does really makes a difference…If I can just find something that can shave off another 20-25 secs, I’ll be happy.

My long runs during the winter/spring have only been around 10k with just one 12k run put in there a few weeks ago and I hadn’t tapered at all up to the race with just one rest day in the last 10 days leading up to the race. So early on I decided to think of the race as more of a really long training run instead go going all out.

The day before the race the weather looked far from perfect with the forecast promising 40mm of rain of the day of the race, but fortunately the rain was postponed and it and it didn’t really start to rain until after the race.

The race stared at 8am so as I always do before a race like this, I got up at 5am and got some wholesome cereal with raisins and a glass of orange juice (I can’t wait for next week’s 6:50 am race start…)

At 6.30 I was picked up by another friend that also participated in the race and although I was still quite sleepy, we drove off towards Rutgers University.

I started off with an intention of just running a 1:40 race (i.e. 4:45 pace/km), but the first 5k was done in 4:37 pace and it still felt like I held back a lot, but I also knew that with the lack of training and tapering then the long distance would get back at me in the end if I didn’t watch out. So I slowed down a bit and did the next 8k with a pace of 4:41.

At 14k I was still feeling really good and just minding my own business when it happened – my mind played the oldest trick on the book on me: Another runner passed me running really effortlessly at something like 4:30 pace and my mind instantly told my feet to speed up and try to draft a bit – after all I couldn’t have somebody pass me! and my body felt a little bored after the long run and slowish tempo. I guess the competition gene just couldn’t be stopped.

So the next 4k was done at 4:29 pace – quite a bit faster than I had promised myself. My body still felt fine, but hearing my breathing getting more strained and seeing my heartrate spike to race levels made my mind come to its senses again towards the end of the race. I slowed down a bit got my heartrace and breathing to a comfortable level and finished the last 4k at 4:38 pace.

Overall I finished the race in a time of 1:37:36 so a bit faster than my intention, but without going for it 100%. Now I can start my tapering for next week’s sprint triathlon. I just have to get on my bike now and do an easy 1 hour roll.

You can see my race activity here:
http://app.strava.com/activities/7202550

And I actually I spotted a place where I took a leek while waiting for the guys at Team Saxo Bank back in 2009