Epic Biking 5K

Crated a new segment on Strava to track a 5K starting from Epic Biking.

1.5 mile swim

When I decided to do a ironman tri my original fear was that I wouldn't be able to run the marathon. But as I started training the running was progressing well. However my swim was not up to speed, so the fear switched to the swim. After swimming twice a week for a few weeks now I am up to doing a 1.5 mile swim and it seems adding in an extra mile would be no problem. But now I am back to being worried about the run. My knee has been sore and swollen since my first tri even though I haven't hardly been running much lately. My last two mile run caused a lot of pain. Somehow I need to get past the knee pain problem.

Icebreaker Tri

Well, like all things journalish, I get a good start and then quickly regress in to fewer and fewer entries.

Last Saturday was my first triathlon. I was worried that I would look pretty stupid having a really fancy bike and coming in last place, but I was actually quite pleased with how things turned out.

As expected I was extremely slow on the swim. I broke down and ran through the shallow parts to get through that part of the event. I need to get some swim time in to improve my performance. However I really think, with some work, I could get to being middle of the pack on the swim.

My transition times were slow, but that was somewhat intentional. I was trying to feel things out, and didn't rush the transitions. In fact I waited a little on the first transition for my GPS to sync with the satellites. It was good to check out what the pros were doing to get a good idea on how I want to work the whole transition part. I think I will have to try the rubber band trick they were using to get into the shoes that were already snapped into the pedals.

My bike went well. I was passed by one other cyclist right at the start. I think it was one of the pro riders that was doing his second lap. I ended up with what I feel is a great ranking on the bike, especially given that I went off course. Talking with someone before the race about the course I was told that you turn right at the second stop sign. Well it is the third, so I turned down the wrong road, and looking around didn't see anyone else on that road, and the people I had just passed continued straight through the intersection. So I quickly turned around and got back on course. I lost at about a minute with this mistake, so I would have been up several places in the bike and overall standings had I not made the wrong turn.

My run went well I passed a lot of people and didn't get passed by many. My knee was still real sore from my last training run, but I still ran it faster than any of my training runs. I was thinking it was going to take awhile before my knee would be ready to run again, but today it is actually feeling better than it was before the tri.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised at how well everything worked out. I can easily improve on my transitions, and swimming which should move me into the upper sections on the results. I also think I can improve on the run, but not as much as I can on the swim and transitions. The biking is probably where it is going to stay.

Results:

DANIEL BURTON

ICE BREAKER TRIATHLON

03/31/12

Racer Number:	42
Gender:	M
Age:	49
Representing:

Chip Time Information
Actual Start Time:	08:16:53.331
Stop Time:	09:27:56.853
Chip Time:	01:11:03.5

Gun Time Information
Assigned Start Time:	08:04:12.100
Stop Time:	09:27:56.853
Gun Time:	01:23:44.7

FINAL TIME: 01:11:03.5

Race Distance: Triathlon

Overall Placing
Place:	70
Time Back:	00:17:37.400

Gender Placing
Place:	60
Time Back:	00:17:37.400

Division Placing
M 45-49 Place:	11
Time Back:	00:08:42.200

No	Name	Interval Time	Total Time	Pace	Overall Place	Overall Back	Gender Place	Gender Back	Divsion Place	Division Back
1	Swim	00:07:15.146	00:07:15.146	2:25.0	111	+3:00.0	86	+3:00.0	13	+1:38.7
2	T1	00:03:51.891	00:11:07.037		177	+3:17.3	121	+3:17.3	14	+3:02.8
3	Bike	00:33:49.933	00:44:56.970	21.3	24	+4:27.9	21	+4:27.9	4	+0:27.6
4	T2	00:01:51.556	00:46:48.526		168	+1:24.7	116	+1:24.7	14	+1:17.7
5	Run	00:24:14.996	01:11:03.522	7:49.4	69	+6:21.0	59	+6:21.0	10	+3:13.5

1/4 Marathon distance brick

Nobody showed up for Spinning this morning, so after waiting long enough to make sure nobody was just being late, I went for a run. Kind of a long time between the bike and the run, but...

I think this is a good distance for me to work on for a while. Far enough to work me, but not so far that I get hurt.

Post White Rim Brick

Did my first brick since my attempt at a half marathon. The first week after the attempt I didn't run because my foot was sore, the second week I didn't run because I didn't want my legs to be tired for the White Rim trip.

The White Rim trip was excellent. Thursday night the stars were so bright with no light pollution. Then the moon came up. The moon was so bright you could have easily biked by the light of the moon. The temperature throughout the day was great, and I ended up with a bit of a sunburn.
I was doing real good at making all the climbs until the very end of Murphy's Hogback. With the added pressure of everyone watching, and a little slip of the rear wheel just before the top I ended up having to stop for a few seconds before finishing the climb. Then on the way up Shafers Trail there was snow a few inches deep on some of the switchbacks and I ended up having to push through a couple of snow banks. Other than that I made all the climbs.

When we got back to the road on top it was starting to get cold and dark. Fortunately Jake came by with his truck and picked us up.



I resumed with my program of running after the spinning class today. I felt fine physically but, was ready to be done with the run almost as soon as I started. Mentally I just didn't feel like running today.

Almost 1/2 Marathon Brick

Durring Spin class this morning I decided I should do a half marathon. I got started a little late after the class so I ran out of time before finishing. I would have used that as an excuse for quitting early, but the truth is my knees and hips started being painful at about 8 miles so I need to stop anyway.

Loooooong T1

Got some swimming lessons today. Great stuff. I am realizing that years of swimming with my head above water I have forgotten how to swim freestyle. Today's instruction helped a lot, now I need to do a lot of practice and see if I can get the drills down. After the swim, I went back to the store and then at noon went for a 20 mile bike ride, and followed that with a short run. So today was my first day doing all three. Basically did a triathlon with a real long T1.

Plus and Minus

Add in a swim and T1 and subtract 4 miles on the bike. Maybe my guess of 1:25 for the Ice Breaker Tri is not too far off. I'm looking forward to the swimming lesson tomorrow. I still need to get the swim up to speed to finish 2.4 miles in under 2 hours.

Ice Breaker

Just signed up for my first tri, the Ice Breaker tri in American Fork. One of the registration questions was, what is your expected finish time. Since this will be my first tri I really don't know how to answer that. 30-40 min for the bike, <30 min for the run, <9 min for the swim. I put down 1:25, but who knows?

Swim, oh no

OK, I took Myron for a swim at the legacy center today. 300 yard swim was hard. I guess I have a lot of work to do to get up to a 2.4 mile swim. Not only was the 300 yard swim hard but I was so slow that I would barely make the 2:20 cutoff if I went that speed for 2.4 miles, and of course I would likely slow down the more I tired. So right now I am officially worried about the swim.   

Sprint Brick

I wasn't planning on running after the bike ride today, so I didn't have things ready to make a quick transition.  My plan was to take Nightfury out for a ride and see how the adjustments felt, and then to run home after work. However, after the ride I forgot the plan and went for a run. I still think I will run home tonight.

Picking up the pace a bit

The nice thing about biking is you could go for a 5 hour bike ride every day of the week. I know I am still building my running, but I don't think the joints could handle running long distances every day. I decide not to run yesterday in order to let my knees recover. I think it worked well. Yesterday my knees were sore, but they felt fine today even after the run. Also, I got a bit bored during the run today so I started picking up the pace for short intervals, so I could finish sooner.

First 10+K run

I'm thinking that there are 4 things you need to be able to do if you want to do an ironman: an all day intense aerobic workout, be able to swim 2.4 miles, be able to bike 112 miles, and be able to run a marathon. 

Whenever someone would tell me I should do an Ironman I would tell them that there is no way I could do the run, after today's run I am thinking this is doable. I know I can do an all day event, I know I can bike 112 miles, and now I am feeling confident that I can do a marathon. Next step is to find a place to work on the swim. I am not worried about open water swimming, as I have done a lot of swimming after the Jetski in nasty weather, and scuba diving in the ocean waves, but I really have never swum for distance and so I have no idea how hard 2.4 miles is.

Nightfury

I've been so busy that I neglected to write in the blog. I did ride the bike into work on Monday followed by an hour of Spinning followed by running to the high school and back. But Tuesday I spent the training time putting together my new bike.

The new tri bike is almost ready, and has been given a name, Nightfury. Getting everything in place and routing all the cables through the frame took a lot of work, now all I have to do is cut the seatpost and adjust the brake pads.

Short Spinning class this morning followed by a 2 mile run. I have been running 2 miles most days, with a 3 mile and 4 mile run thrown in. I think I will try a longer run next chance I get.

I was warned I need to do a half iron before doing a full iron. Of course I figure I should do an olympic before the half, and a sprint before the olympic.

A Brick?

John didn't show up for Spinning this morning. Tomorrow is my day off so I am going to eat some breakfast and then try doing the 20K and 5K distances of a sprint. I have been running after the Spinning, but I think I am taking too much time between the two to count as a brick. So I will leave my shoes by the door so I can do a quick transition from bike to run.


Well... I did it. Now all I need to do is add in a swim and I have a sprint tri.

I don't know the difference between a K and 1024 bytes, so I changed my Garmin to metric to get use to it.

My bike

After this morning's Spinning class it took a little while for everyone to leave so I was really tempted to skip the run and claim it was a day to let the legs recover. But I figured that if I started using excuses I would fall into the trap of not getting out, so I went for the run.

The nice thing though was when I got out and started running the standard route, to Pioneer crossing and back, didn't seem like enough. I was really tempted to go longer, but stayed on routine.

My bike: I was planning on getting a Trinity Composite 1 as my bike, but this bike is in such high demand that I could not get my EP price on it.

So I am going to be getting a Trinity Advanced SL frameset and then building up the bike.

Day 2 - Biking in the snow

The roads were snowy this morning, but I stuck with my plan and biked into work, followed by an hour Spinning class and then the 1.77 mile jog. My legs felt better than I expected. I felt like I could have gone further.

I was talking with John about my plans and so he ran with me this morning after Spinning class. I think I lured him into this plan to do a ironman with me.

So we started looking at different Ironman events. The St George Ironman is close, but the timing isn't right and $600 entrance fee is out of my budget. There are other events like the Vineman in California, but by the time you figure in travel and everything that is out of my budget also. So now I am thinking we put together our own Ironman distance event. The key for me is to do the distances, but I don't really need to have it be an official event.

The cool thing is my Pony Express Century route works out to be 112 miles which is the correct distance for the bike. So if we start at the Saratoga Springs marina, swim 2.4 miles in Utah Lake, bike the Pony Express Century loop, and then run out to the Jordan River trail out 13.1 miles and back, we would have an Ironman distance course.

I'm thinking if someone wants to organize this into an official event I'll work with them on that, otherwise I'll just see if anyone wants to do it with me as an unorganized event.

Ironman?

My son has been trying to talk me into doing an Ironman for a couple of years now. I've finally decided that I will start getting ready to do it. I know I can bike the 112 miles, I may be able to swim 2.4 miles, but I know right now I could not run 26.2 miles.

So today after doing my normal hour Spinning I went for a jog down the road and back. I know it isn't far or fast but I need to get my legs use to running instead of just biking. I think I will continue with short jogs like this for this week and then up the distance next week.