Thursday, July 30, 2009

Climbing Aura


I'm also either romantic, superstitious, silly, or a fool. Whenever I have a big swimming event coming up, the night before I'll eat a fish. Well this Saturday is the Bairgutsman race up Baer Canyon. I'm a little nervous because it's very steep. As you can see from this image, there are parts where its a 20% grade up a rocky trail.

So I thought of an animal that's a great rock/mountain climber. Mountain goats! But no restaurant serves up goats. So I ordered a Goat Cheese salad from Redrock. Man was it good! Goat cheese rocks. Hopefully the essence of goat enters my body and remains for a few days so I can climb like an expert up that trail! If only I had hoofed feet!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

10 Mile hike with the scouts

This afternoon our troop did this hike:



Here are the stats:

Distance: 10.1 miles
Time: 2:45
Average Speed: 3.67 MPH

It was nice visiting with Tom and getting to know him a little better. Poor Kyler got hit by a bicyclist. Not too bad, but enough to make him limp a little. It was hot out there. My thermostat read 97 when we started and 91 when we finished at 7:45. My ankles are a little stiff. Hopefully I'll be fully recovered for this weekend's Bairgutsman race.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Steep Hills with Cathi

This morning Cathi and I got up early and ran this route:


We are doing the Bairgutsman in a couple weeks and wanted to get at least one pre-race training run in. Cathi ran the whole time, but I had to walk at the top of Mountain road and then on the way down on East Oaks Drive. It was a tough workout. I think I'm gonna be sore. Sad thing is, it's just a portion of the route in two weeks so I'm gonna be dead on August 1-2nd.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Results of the 2009 Echo Olympic Triathlon - 2:33:50

Last night our family went to camp at the Holiday Hill RV Park in Echo. We got there at 4:00 pm and found a good camp site. We started up a fire and had tinfoil dinners, raspberry lemonade, and fig newtons. We played games and had a fun time. We all fit in the tent and had a good nights sleep.

I got to bed around 9:45 and got up at 5:30 am. Everyone was still asleep. I told Cathi to just stay at camp and have a fun time with the kids. They didn't allow cars on that road and there was no way she would be able to walk to the venue with the kids. So I biked to the venue, got the transition area all setup and got my body marking. I went to the waterfront and the water was so warm! I mean it was like swimming in a lap pool. So I decided not to use a wetsuit at all.

Man was I glad because after the first 10 seconds I could tell it would have been way too warm with a wetsuit. I had put some baby oil in my goggles per a recommendation by Teri Child. Problem was the fogginess wasn't any beter in fact it was worse! I coulden't see more than 10 feet in front of me. I stayed behind a couple of guys in the swim so that I could just look at their feet underwater to make sure I was going the right way. But soon I was passing them and I didn't have a way to see if I was heading the right way. When I lifted my head out of the water to look for the buoy up ahead I couldn't see it. My goggles were too foggy. After the second buoy I gave up using goggles and flipped them off my head. Now when I lifted my head out I could see clearly up ahead. I should have done that from the start. I was spending too much time correcting myself on the swim. I will have to research some decent goggles that don't fog or get some defogger or something.

When I got out my watch said 27:28. Then the transition to bike could have been better. I put my bike number on the front of my equmen shirt which was a mistake. It's already tight fitting, but with it going on wet it was rolling up behind my shoulders and I probably looked like a fat dude getting into a small shirt. I got it on in about 1 minute. The bike ride went well. It was hilly as expected. Here's the route and you can see there's a 600 foot climb between mile 6 and 10.
I passed more people than was passed so I had a net gain of two.

The transition to run was pretty quick and I started off. I'm sure any gains I got in the bike and swim were lost during the run. I was passed left and right, even though the passing was done by alot of sprint athletes. I did the 10K in 51:56. My overall time was 2:33:50. Taking 16th out of 35 in my age division. Pretty mediocre job. Oh well. I felt good about my effort and learned on my swim. Next time. Better goggles. The water temperature was awesome and it was overcast with no rain or wind. Couldn't ask for better weather conditions.

Here's my official results and as you can see my times aren't embarrasingly bad from the leader, except for the run.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Nice ride for the first half

The ride to Bountiful went really well, got my average speed up to 21.3, but then I hit a pretty strong headwind in Bountiful and it went way down from there.

Distance: 30.6 miles
Time: 1:34
Average Speed:19.5 mph
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Friday, July 03, 2009

Run up to Bridge on Trail from Cabin

This morning got up with Cathi and ran up Right Hand Fork Canyon Road up past the trailhead and to the first bridge about 1/4 mile up the trail. Then we ran back to the cabin and then down the canyon about a half mile or so. We planned it so that we would be gone one hour. So we figured it was close to a 10K. Here's the map which is pretty rough.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Drained

Man today's energy level was about 25% of normal and my ride was sure slower than normal. Probably doesn't help that I only got 6 hours of sleep last night. Stayed up a little to watch Letterman and didn't turn off the TV till 11. Got up at 5:40 am and got ready. My legs just didn't have the drive they normally do. I didn't get depressed over it cause I realize I need to better fuel my body as well as allow for more time to recover.

Distance: 30.6 miles
Time: 1:42
Average Speed: a pathetic 18.2 mph
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The ride home was completely different. I loaded up on stuff from Vosen's and got some good carbs loaded. Had a very delicious peach nectar on ice that was fantastic. I'm going to have to remember that next week when I taper for Echo. Here's the ride home stats:

Distance: 30.6 miles
Time: 1:29
Average Speed: 20.6 mph