Tuesday, January 30, 2024

2023 season wrap up

 It was a season! I managed to fit in a few more sprint triathlons this year. Expectations have been adjusted accordingly. 

We don't ride on the roads anymore except at the races. Our personal risk reward assessment on this is that the greenways and Peloton are safe and accomplish what we want to do, and the roads are not (for us). So the intervals are few and far between, but the sights and sounds of the greenways and Umstead State Park are many. 

Bri and I had fun at the Triangle sprint triathlon at Harris County Park. We actually did the mini sprint, which was half of the sprint, more or less. I missed a bike turn and Bri lost her chance to run me down. She won, and I was 5th. In between us were 3 children. She says we have to do the regular sprint next season, but I am reserving the right to go super-short. 

There was another sprint at the Rex Wellness triathlon in Wakefield. This is a 250 yd swim - 10 mile bike - 2mile run. Also fun. I think I finished 10th or so.

And then the real fun! The Battle at Buckhorn sprint triathlon on Sep 30, followed by an off road triathlon in Greensboro on Oct 7. Years ago I won the Battle at Buckhorn 3x in a row. This year I did not. But I enjoyed myself.

The off road triathlon was also a good time. We have 2 mountain bikes. One is an old, heavy Giant with front suspension. The other is a light, sleek Litespeed with a front stem shock. Both are 26 inch wheelers. I went with the Litespeed option. It was probably the better choice, but man, I got crushed by all the 29'ers with full suspension. Anyway, this was my 2nd longest event of the year, with a finishing time around 2:30. 

Off road is fun and different, and not on the road. The Natty Greene's Revenge triathlon is the only one I know of in NC that offers an off-road triathlon option.

The next morning we woke up bright and early and put on our Hurricane Swim. It was rescheduled yet again due to the late September storm that formed off the SC / NC coast. Fortunately our reschedule date turned out to be a beautiful morning and all went well.

We did a lot of weekend hiking. One of our fun family activities for 2023 was to find a new trail, hike 2-3 miles, then hit the nearest brewpub for dinner afterwards.

Life is good. Family is happy. Dog is cute. See you next time!

-edit- I forgot to publish this. 

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

OMG I'm still here

Heeeeeyyyeee. How you doin? It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. Not that nothing has been going on, but more in the vein of I didn't have much to share. 

Life has been good, we've gone some places and done some things. Our son Junior Awesome continues to grow like a tree/weed/appropriate growth metaphor. Our dog Penny Awesome is still super cute and loves to wiggle while she growls and chases the ball. Yadda yadda.
 
Bri and I closed out last season with SwimRun NC in late October of 2022. This is a race where you run then swim then run then repeat a few more times. We went into it undertrained and suffered the consequences. It was still a fun, team building exercise though.  Here are a couple pictures.



In early February of this year 2023, we ventured down to Tallahassee, FL to meet up with a good friend of Bri's and run the Tallahassee half-marathon. We were better trained for this and it went well. We all ran together for about 11 miles until I put the hammer down in order to show my wife who's the boss.
Here are pictures.






Junior Awesome continues to be fun. He has gotten into soccer. Alas, he was not really into swimming so will just be doing summer league swim team for the foreseeable future. He does lots of rides, hikes, and runs with us. Here are pictures in no particular order.










Next up for me is the Beaverdam sprint triathlon at Falls Lake followed by the Crystal Coast Half-Booty triathlon in Beaufort, NC. Fitness is fair to adequate. I've mostly given up road riding so all the miles are on an indoor trainer or on greenways. 

That is all. Hope you are well. 

Sunday, October 10, 2021

50k for 50 years

There are many stupid things to do in the world. One of them is running for a long time through difficult terrain using only your feets and your wits. So, that's what I did, in a dubious pre-50th birthday celebration called The Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock 50k. October 02, 2021.

Let's start with the name. Traditionally the race is run from Pilot to Hanging Rock. But in 2021 the race course was reversed to avoid the supposed large crowds of sandal-toed tourists cruising through the beautiful trails of Hanging Rock on a Sunday afternoon. 

The race is held mostly on singletrack, with a few stretches along the road or on bridle trails. Of the 50k, I'd say about 40 (k) is singletrack, but I could be off by a mile or two. 

There is also a painful amount of elevation gain and loss. I don't know what you're used to running, but a local tough 10 mile course near me has about 800 feet of gain/loss. 

This dopey endeavor had 3,700 feet of gain and 4,500 feet of loss. If you're a runner, you know what running downhill on tired legs feels like. So you don't need me to describe it. But you might just be some random hiker dude or chick that found this page so I'll explain it. It feels like an invisible gremlin is stabbing you in the quads with every step. So there's that.

I ran with a couple of friends, who for anonymity's sake I'll call Happy and Grumpy. They both trained for it pretty well. Happy had some back issues that threw him off, while Grumpy struggles in warmer conditions.

My preparation for this race was not bad. I didn't want to bang out huge long runs during the height of the summer heat, so I delayed a real long buildup until August. And I cheated in how I increased my weekly mileage. Traditionally it's not advisable to add more than 10% or so to your long run distance or your total weekly mileage. Since I'm special, the royal Me ignored these rules and jumped a fair bit week to week. I already forgot most details, but my long run distances went something like 11 - 13 - 16 - 18 - 20. With a downweek or two in there somewhere.  If you're really interested you can follow me on Strava. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button either.

The other neat trick I added was to follow up the long runs with another run the following day, instead of the usual triathlete plan of a long ride or a day off, depending on who/when/what you do. My longest session thus wound up being a 20 miler on Saturday followed by 8.5 on Sunday. 

Anyway blah blah blah I also swam and biked and did strength and yoga and was overall in pretty good condition. Happy and Grumpy both had more running miles in them but I probably had more overall training volume. 

So then we started the race. Or kind of. There were about 200 people doing the event. 180 of them lined up and took off at the start. We and a few others waited a couple minutes to let it clear out. Then we started.

Now, if you're smart, you go and review the race course so you know what to expect. We did not because we are not smart, so imagine our surprise when we hit an extremely tight singletrack section a half mile in. And then we walked! For almost 2 miles, it was too tight to pass anyone and the few slower runner/hikers that had started immediately just shut down our game. 

Grumpy trying to run in a crowd

But soon enough there was room to pass and we started running. Happy got frustrated and started leapfrogging people, while Grumpy and myself cruised together for a few more miles. I eventually pulled away and a 2-3 mile stretch of highway running. 

Then it became a matter of pacing and just being careful with the steps. It was very scenic, and the temperature for the first 2/3 of the race was comfortable. 



I ran with my phone so my many fans around the world could track my progress using a program the race provided. They could send me movie quotes and other clips to keep me motivated. That was a fun way of knowing someone out there cared.

Here are the 10, 20, and 30 mile video updates.




the final miles!

Notice the up and downy-ness


There was very little in the way of flat running. Around mile 21 we entered the Pilot Mountain trails, which were nice, but my legs were really hurting. I took an Aleve at 23, and by 25 the pain was cut in half, which I always find amazing. So that definitely helped me keep a mostly running/jogging form through the finish. 

No problems with nutrition. I ate a lot of caffeinated Gus and high salt Clif Bloks. Started with Gatorade Endurance and then switched to whatever electrolyte drink they had on the course.

The last 10k started to get warm, but in the shade of the trails it didn't bother me, and having been on top of the nutrition /hydration no problems. My pace through these was a little slower than I would have liked, but it was a balance between quad pain and general fatigue to keep going.

Yay, then I finished!  Happy had ran well and finished ~20 min before me. I wound up in 6:17 and some change and was 14th OA and 3rd in my AG. So throughout the run I passed ~160 or so runners/hikers walkers. The only ones that passed me were a handful of the fast psycho 50 miler runners, who were weaving on and off our 50k course.



Grumpy had a rough finish with some overheating but hung tough to the finish line.

So if you like running, trails, and suffering, this ultrarun might be just for you.  I'm definitely a one and done type with anything over a marathon. 10 mile trail runs are great. 50k is definitely more of an endeavor.

I took my time with recovery. As of the writing of this amazing blog, it's been 8 days. I swam easy 4x during the week but no running. I'm going to run-walk 2-3 miles tomorrow.  My legs were very sore, my knees were achy, and some ancillary muscles that almost never get sore are still sore now.

And that's your exciting recap. Until next time!

Thursday, June 17, 2021

Hey, you.

 Old blogs never die!

How are you doing? Good, me as well. Yes yes it's been quite a year. Oh wow yeah I heard. That's too bad. That's great! You don't say. Well good for them!

Things are picking back up in our neck of the woods. It was a pretty quiet 1.33 years but who's counting. Where to start?

Junior Awesome started 3rd grade. I mean, he finished 3rd grade. 


We had a lot of fun with our Y Guides group at spring outing, which is a weekend camp type atmosphere with dads and kids. 

Bri and I have kept the fitness going with daily workouts. She has been more diligent about bike intervals, while I've been more diligent about swimming (since it doesn't hurt as much). We'll have our head to head 2021 battle at the 3 Little Pigs Triathlon in Smithfield this Saturday. The smart money is on Bri to run 2-ish minutes faster for the win. Big Daddy's speed and heat tolerance have not improved over the years. 

Coaching was pretty tough in 2020. Lots of people dropped off the radar, it was difficult to impossible to run clinics, and we had to cancel our swimming races at the local lake. This year is going better, with the trend line moving in the right direction.

We managed to do lots of fun stuff and we have some fun stuff planned for the summer.  So let's see what we did do in late 2020-early 2021.

Going backwards in time cuz I can't be bothered to go forward, we 

climbed trees in May


Had an anniversary

Y Guides trip:




Ran a kids triathlon training program


Took a spring break trip to see family and visit Savannah, GA











Went skiing


Took a dry January fitness assessment


Loved on the doggy

went hiking


Had battles

And hiking again

Went fall dipping with Y guides

That's 8 months of living in a 3 minute blog post. We're definitely living in a simulation. 0001 001010110101 end of line.