The Evil Eyebrow

Category: triathlon

  • 2010 Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon

    I ran the 2010 Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon this morning. I wasn’t ready, but that’s only 1/3 my fault. Well, 2/3. Back to that in a second.

    Here are my times (this course is ~450 meters, 14 miles and a 5k):

    William Ruhsam (35-40 Age Group; Total of 92 Competitors)

    • Swim 10:35 22nd in my Age Group
    • T1 1:32 22nd in my Age Group
    • Bike 43:07 59th in my Age Group
    • T2 1:11 45th in my Age Group
    • Run 26:27 42nd in my Age Group
    • Total 1:22:50 45th in my Age Group (270th overall)

    Compared to Last Year with 124 in my Age Group

    • Swim (1/3 mile) 8:42 12th in my age group
    • T1 1:50 21st in my age group
    • Bike (13.9 miles) 37:39 28th in my age group
    • T2 0:50 3rd in my age group
    • Run (3.1 miles) 23:35 24th in my age group
    • Total 1:12:35 18th in my age group

    As you can see, I lost over ten minutes from last year. Most of that on the Bike. There are two reasons for this (well, three):

    1. I wasn’t training for an Ironman this year. I didn’t have eight months of constant long-distance endurance training to give me a base
    2. I was injured for the last three weeks. I didn’t move a muscle so that my calf would heal. I’m trying to train for a marathon, after all.
    3. I was a lazy butt for the last three weeks. I could have gone swimming at least.

    Anyhow. I’m perfectly happy with the race. As always, it was a well-supported race with great volunteers and superb organization. I had a friend with me, David Tyberg, who was kind enough to take some cameraphone videos of me transitioning. I’ll see if they’re worthy of being posted here.

  • Running/Triathlon Training: State of the Bill

    IMG_9297
    I had a commenter a while back say that he missed my posts about running and triathlon training. Alas, for the last little while there hasn’t been much to post, but here is a general update:

    Jennifer and I are registered for the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington DC. This race is October 31st. Those of you good at math may note that date is about 2 months away.

    We’ve been training regularly for this race, doing quite well keeping up with our schedule. Until… [duh duh DUHHHH] I pulled my calf muscle and Jennifer started having some feeling-well issues. Right now, I’m about 4 weeks behind on my training and Jenn maybe two. But all is not lost! Things seem to be better in my calf and this weekend I will be resuming my exercise schedule by participating in the Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon (Tri-PTC) which, if you recall, I had to walk 2 years ago due to another calf injury.

    I think I’ve given the leg enough time to rest and heal. Now I need to see if I’ve got enough time left to prepare adequately for the marathon. I’ll know that in a few weeks. Jenn is coming along well; if she can survive this CRUSHING SINK OF DEATH known as submitting her tenure dossier, everything will be fine.

    Despite the fact I’m racing a triathlon this weekend, I haven’t been doing any real training for triathlon this summer. I’ve been swimming enough to not drown, but I haven’t been on my bike in weeks. No, I’ve pretty much just been concentrating on running, except for the last 3 weeks where I just Sat On My Butt And Ate Bon-Bons™.1 That will obviously change soon and I’ll be back to doing three-days a week runs at work (please oh please oh please will the humidity drop soon?) and long runs on the weekend.

    I also need to work in some basic strength training. I can’t really know but I blame my lack of any strength training this spring or summer for my calf strain. I plan to go (after the marathon) and get an evaluation of my muscular weaknesses from an expert and spend the winter working on those.

    So, Triathlon this weekend. Marathon on Halloween. I’m sure there will be some other races in there, also. I’ll keep you posted.

    1: SOMBAABB is a trademark of the JBWR community. This is what we do when we’re not doing anything else.

  • Workouts – Back to Basics

    Today I began something that I should probably have been doing all along. It might have averted the little tiny problem I had last fall. That thing is: core workouts every day.

    Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t plan to put in a 45 minute abs-back-hips intensive crushing exercise session every single day. What I plan to do is devote at least 15 minutes to doing basic strengthening exercises to stabilize my core. I know I can come up with 15 minutes every day for a basic set of poses. If I don’t manage to get up in time, I can do them at lunch. If I don’t do them at lunch, there’s at home. 15 minutes is easy. I can do it!

    If the marathon training underway knocks my fat percentage down any more, I might even have a six pack! I won’t hold my breath, though.

    15 minutes a day (or more, depending). Jenn might even get me back into Yoga. We’ll see.

  • Back, Ironman, Training 2010

    My back is much better. Thanks everyone who’s been keeping up.

    Ironman is past and gone. Too bad I couldn’t do it. I will keep that in my back pocket for some other year.

    I am even as we speak (not that we’re speaking) putting together my training calendar for 2010. It begins today with a benchmark run of 1.0 miles for time. I plan to do a mile run every four weeks or so to gauge my progress toward my goal of a 5k under 21:00.

    That is all. Stay tuned.

  • DNF

    D. N. F.

    Those three letters are a bugaboo of the multisport community. Some people—driven people—look on those three letters as a symbol of failure; a mark of something wrong. To be branded DNF in the race results is shameful and deeply injurious to some (so I’ve read).

    I do not agree that the DNF that will appear by my name in the Florida Ironman results places any special weight on my character. Truly, I am disappointed that I couldn’t do the race but while I am disappointed, it’s not a disappointment if you can see the subtle difference.

    Let’s look at what I’ve lost by not completing this Ironman:

    • I’m not an “Ironman”
    • I’m out the entry fee

    Yeah, that’s about it. And if you want to get technical, I probably recouped the entry fee by not showing up in Florida and spending four days in a hotel eating food and drinking beer. So, that second one is a wash. That leaves the first. I may not be an “Ironman” in the sense that I’ve completed a 140.6 mile full-distance triathlon, but I’m confident enough in myself and my training program that I would have finished except for the timing of that pesky injury.

    Now let’s look at what I have not lost:

    • One year of dedicated training which will serve as an excellent base of condition for the next race season
    • The best shape I’ve ever been in. Ask my wife and see if she disagrees. I’m stronger, fitter, musclier than ever before. The only thing I’m not “…er” than is “fast”, and I weighed 40 pounds less in high school when I was running cross country.
    • Equipment that I purchased for this race that isn’t going to sit around gathering dust, I promise
    • The mental capacity to push through a program of training like I did. With one brief exception1 I’ve never been this focused on one thing before. This had pros and cons. That’s another post, though.
    • The ability to walk for a few weeks. I’ve pulled this particular set of back muscles before. The typical healing time is two weeks. I had six days. While I might have been able to push through to the end of the race, I don’t believe it would have been a good thing. Remember what the most important part of my training regimen is. (psst: It’s racing and living injury-free)

    There’s no arguing that I did things this year that I would not have done had it not been for my training. I spent money I wouldn’t have and I put aside hobbies and opportunties because my weekends were taken up with time swimming, biking and running. Looking back, though, I really can’t say that this was a bad thing. I learned, I grew and now I can move on to my winter rest period knowing that I did my best, even if I didn’t complete the race.

    1: Studying for the Principles and Practice examination for my PE license was this intensive, but much shorter.

  • Ironman Conclusion

    Today I made a tough decision. I decided to not race in the 2009 Florida Ironman.

    On Sunday I pulled some muscles in my back in a truly heroic manner. This particular injury is one I’m familiar with from past experience and I knew on Sunday that it was deal breaker for this race. I held out against the hope that maybe, just maybe, a miracle recovery would occur and I’d be able to race. Alas, it was not to be. Today I’m still not able to stand up straight except for immediately after lying down for a while. We were scheduled to leave tomorrow morning for the race site therefore this was the first of two go/no-go decision points.

    No Go.

    I could conceivably get better enough in the next two days to race, but I place the likelihood somewhere between “maybe” and “not a chance in hell”. Then there’s the serious prospect that even if I did get “better enough to start” I would re-injure myself during the race. I don’t know about you, but I like walking and would prefer to avoid lying on my back for a couple weeks.

    All the factors are lined up against going, only the desire to enjoy what looks to be perfect racing weather is driving me to reconsider.

    It’s a tough decision, but the right one for me. There will be other races, possibly other ironman races, to look forward to. I won’t say I’m not depressed about this, but in the grand scheme of things there are worse things that could have happened. This was just exceptionally bad timing for an injury.

  • Ironman: 4 Days to Go

    Backache

    It’s Tuesday morning and my back is a wee bit better, but not much. I’m dropping my race participation chances from coinflip to 30%. I’d like to be more optimistic about this but the sad fact is that I’ve had this injury before and I know how long it takes to get better. The upside is that I don’t have to get 100% better, just better enough to complete the race.

    Tomorrow evening will be my first go/no-go call. If that one is a go, we’ll head to Florida on Thursday and then I’ll have another go/no-go on Friday night.

  • T Minus 14 Days

    At this time, in two weeks, I’ll be hitting the water.

    I think I’ll go bike a hundred miles to celebrate.

    Swim Start; Ironman Florida 2008

  • Ironman Florida: 4 Weeks to Go

    Ironman All the Time!
    I’m sitting at my desk (except when I’m taking pictures of the desk) contemplating 28 days left until the race. Today is a light training day as I’m in a rest week of my periodization plan. Two more intense weeks to go then it’s all about the taper, baby! I’ll be getting out to bike a bit and run this afternoon, but right now I’m catching up on the checkbook and other computer-related chores.

    I’m also waiting for coverage to being for The Ironman. Hawaii. Kona. The World Championships. It’s being broadcast today via the ironman.com website so check it out if you want. Coverage starts at 11:00 EDT and the first racer across the finish line won’t be until after 7:00 EDT so you’ve got plenty of time.

    It’s amazing how tri-focused I’ve become in the past six months. Yes, I can name the major players in the sport and the industry. I can barely do that with the Braves and I’ve been following them for years. Yes, I can spout tri-centric terms and discussion and I know what you mean when you say “I Fartlecked” (although that’s a runner term, not a tri term). I’ve remarked to several people recently that I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself after the race is over and I’m not spending so much time focused on one thing. I expect I’ll find something (like yardwork).

    My training is coming along and I’m no longer as freaked out as I was a couple weeks ago. I’ll finish this race, although I revised my finish time upward to 14 hours. I’ll probably come in under that, but 14 hours is my projection. There’s just no telling how well I’ll do on the various legs, but here are my assumptions. These are reasonably conservative.

    Swim Pace / 100 Yds 0:02:05
    Bike Pace (mph) 16
    Run Pace (min/mile) 12

    swim 1:28:00
    t1 0:08:00
    bike 7:00:00
    t2 0:10:00
    run 5:14:24
    Total 14:00:24

    If you knock the bike pace up to 17 mph, I come in at 13:35:42.
    If you up the run pace to 11.5 minutes per mile, the time is 13:47:18.
    If you do both, I’m in at 13:22:36.

    Going fast on the swim has no appreciable effect on these times, so I won’t be. The swim is the part that has me a bit worried. Not that I think I can’t do it, just that I’ve never done a swim under these conditions. One of the hard-fast rules of racing is “Never do anything new on race day.” Well, this will be new and I don’t have any way of training for the scrum of the swim. I can go out and do some open water swims in my wetsuit (next week) but I can’t find 700 of my closest friends to do it with, in the ocean. No fast swim for Bill. It will be go as slow as I need to to get onto the beach in good condition. I’ll remind my readers that I felt like yakking after my swim last week. I hope to avoid that for the race.

    The bike pace is a big unknown for me. When I was doing initial time projections in the winter I was figuring about an 18 MPH pace as a good goal. With what I’ve been doing lately on my long rides, I’m not sure that 18 MPH is a reasonable pace, but I haven’t ridden the actual course, which has looonnng rolling hills, not some of the severe ones I get around Atlanta (even on the Silver Comet, see the footnote).

    So 18 MPH might be achievable, but for projections I’m sticking with 16,

    The run is also a big unknown for me. My long runs have been clocking in around a 10:30 pace, but I’ve only gone up to 16 miles to date and they haven’t been after a 112 mile ride. I’m also determined to finish this race strong and not in the condition I was in at the Nike Women’s Marathon, so I will be taking it as easy as necessary during the first 2/3 of the run to keep myself in good shape. 12 minutes per mile is a good pace, putting me in at 5:14 for the marathon.

    As an aside, Jenn and I like to poke back and forth about our marathon times. She maintains that her marathon time is better than mine (which was true for the Nike Women’s, by 3.5 minutes) but I hold the line that my average marathon time is better (she’s done two, I’ve done one). The debate lies in whether I should consider the ironman marathon time in this average. I’m leaning toward no as she’s insisting I decide before the race.

    The time discussion here notwithstanding, the important thing to me is to finish. If I finish in 16:59:59, I’ll be happy. That’s my line.

  • New Favorite Exercise Clothing

    My new favorite piece of exercise gear is right here in this photo. Can you guess what it is?

    Stttrrrretch

    It’s not the shorts. Or the hair.

    It’s the arm warmers!

    Those things rock. I bought them last week in order to wear them on the bike ride Saturday, which I may have alluded to before. They were the only reason I didn’t turn around Saturday morning and take a nap until it warmed up a bit.

    Likewise tonight, I carried them with me and put them on about halfway through my 3 hour run. The difference was night and day. Wonderful piece of gear.