Full-Time Triathlete =)

Since summer school finished about three weeks ago, I am enjoying the time of my life. Less than two months later I will be committed to working for the long haul. Dun dun dunnnn...please help me!

Okay maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. I wonder if there is a book for dummies on how to transition to the real world? Instead of T1 or T2, but TRealWorld. Last year was simple; two words that could postpone the inevitable – GRAD SCHOOL!

Some Most will argue my current lifestyle is very much like being a F/T triathlete. All I do really is really quite obvious if you’ve been following my blog. I wake up 5:30am, watch the TdF. Rest, eat, nap, train and do some housework, snack, eat, ETC. At 7pm I will still be in denial thinking that OLN had made a huge mistake of not airing primetime coverage of TdF in Canada.

While some may choose to travel the world and/or visit exotic beach destinations, I made it quite obvious my mission is Global Domination for some time now. And on a budget too (you know?) because it can get quite expensive. At least for me, it’s particularly difficult to roll out more than a grand piano espeically if you’re not racing there.

Yep one of the early steps to reaching global domination in a sustainable fashion, How to become one step closer to reaching global domination while still on a budget, STEP No. 3: think globally, act locally.

So far I’m on the right track. I broke 40 minutes for the 10km Vancouver Sun Run, and only recently broke 5 hours for the Subaru Vancouver Half IM. This has been a breakout season for me. In previous years, getting one PB would have been somewhat awesome, this year I have 5 already! Oh crap, sorry I don’t mean to brag.

I finished Vancouver Half IM with the feeling I could still hold the pace and didn’t want to stop. I need to work on speed. That is to swim faster, T1 faster, bike faster, T2 faster, and run faster. This is a lot to ask for Sooke Half IM in a little over three weeks.

I’m still nursing the foot injury and haven’t been putting as much running in as I like.

My sources are telling me that it is also about a 10minute longer course. Realistically, I probably won’t pb this race, but it will be a great learning experience on the scenic course. I’m keen on improving my swimming time at the very least.

Those are my thoughts of the day. Happy training my friends!

Triple Crown!

the "Triple Crown" challenge!

...nobody said that global domination was going to be easy. Last Saturday, Vincent Lavallee organized an epic ride that included the three mountain climbs on the north shore aka the Triple Crown: Cypress, Grouse, and Seymour. He considerately wrote a survivour guide to assist those who may be ill-advised of the challenge (like me). Many showed up for the event, but not many survived/conquered all three of the challenging climbs.


It may not have been very pretty, but I was the legendary last survivour to endure the epic three mountains challenge.

How to become one step closer to achieving utter global domination, STEP No. 7: survive the Triple Crown.

I packed as much food as I could on this ride. Among the edible items include Gatorade powder enough to make 3 litres worth, candy, bagels and power bars! I armed myself with my trusty profile design slurpee bottle with the eye-popping straw and SPF 100 Ultra Sheer Neutrogena Sunscreen. I also tried freezing the water bottles, however that technique didn't pan out so well, as I was consuming warm gatorade all day.

One of my big highlights of the day was just surviving the last 1km stretch of climbing at Mount Seymour. Thinking 'HTFU Winstorm', I was nearly bonking and I tried gathering as much strength I could in the legs and back.

Some (I call keeners) were chasing time and others were chasing each other, while I was left chasing cheeseburgers and pain killers. Luckily I still had two power bars and there was a hot dog vendor at the top. Like when a snowboarder gracefully pulls off swiffer “S”-turns (see Snowboarding Dictionary), I was using nearly the entire 3-lane width of the road to make it up during the final kilometre. Ah yes, the path of least resistance. It wasn’t pretty, but eventually I got the job done.

Something I call reverse "Swiffers" on the final km

On top of that challenge, probably not the smartest decision albeit, was to get a 200+km ride in, because everybody knows that coming a few kilometres shy of double century is not as sweet. However due to battery power saving efforts, I lost 13km of the descent from Mount Cypress. So my final on-the-grid ride was 190km. My final result was an impressive feat, clocking 8.5 hours for 203km, and climbing over 2600m!

Race report: Subaru Vancouver Half-Iron

Date/Time: July 4, 2010, 6:30 am
Weather: 10ish cool and cloud cover
Distance: Half IM
Gun time: 4:57:40 <--sub 5 milestone pb
Swim: 41:03 (2:10 per 100m pace)
T1: 2:51
Bike: 2:43:23 (33.4km/hr)
T2: 1:21
Run: 1:29:04 (4:28 per km pace)
Age Group: 4/9
Overall: 50/241

Not very often do you get to pass more than half (137/241) of the entire field after the swim leg. Here’s a perspective of what unfolded.

Heading into this race, I was on schedule to crack that prestigious sub 5 hours mark for the first time in the half-ironman distance.

In short, this was a pretty big deal. Racing on home turf and finally debuting on my new bike and then spreading the word to virtually everyone I knew, I wanted to PB and put on a show for the home crowd. Using the home turf to my advantage, that tactic seems to work to my favour. Here’s a breakdown of the results for the Vancouver Half-iron course and the time gained from 2009.

Yes, the casual observer would say my swimming still hit the crapshoot, but overall I was quite pleased with the result. Notice that the percentage improvement from 2009 is greater for the swim than bike and run, (or at least that's what I like to think). ;)

Being a smaller athlete, I always struggled with the open water swimming component. I knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty based on last year’s less-than-stellar result. I was hoping for a time between 39 to 41 minutes to stay on pace for sub 5 hours. My strokes felt smooth and I did a lot of zigzagging every time somebody came into contact with me. I think had I gone more aggressively into the linear moving bodies’ draft and get wacked silly a few times, probably would had save about 2 minutes based on my 1:55 per 100m pace I was holding in Kits pool earlier in the week. NTS: this is something to work on in the future. I placed 187th after the swim leg, EKKK. Mayday, mayday, I had no BUBBLES action. I got the feeling I finished last, so the chase begins.

T1 was great; I finally mastered the art of mounting with the shoes clipped in. I spent an hour practicing on the previous Tuesday. This was probably more show, then anything else. And besides, I felt cool doing it – the confidence booster was huge. In effect, it probably didn’t save me much time in T1, but it did make me feel more confident on the bike leg. I was ranked 154th heading into the bike leg, winstormying 33 more positions.

Biking was an extraordinary feeling. The new time trial bike fit wasn’t giving me as much discomfort as originally anticipated. I was flying. I had practiced the course and got about 38 minutes per lap in training. These are the splits of what my Garmin Forerunner 305 had read.

I took the last lap at an easier effort while spinning at a higher cadence to prepare for the run as usual. In perspective with last year’s splits, this year’s fourth lap split nearly beat last year’s fastest first lap of 39:37.



This was a lot of fun course because so many UBC Tri-club members were doing the half-iron distance. Chasing people on the bike was a lot like being Mantracker, however, instead of being located in the wilderness, this was in an urban triathlon. I can get time splits of the escapees as they loop back. Sometimes the preys saw me, sometimes I saw them. Also a female relay team from the club humbly made it no secret that they would beat all the boys. This definitely motivated me to bring my A-plus game as they brought theirs too.



With exceptions to relay teams and people doing the sprint distance, nobody could sustain a bike pass on me heading into T2. I was ranked 73rd, and passing another whopping 81 positions! A pretty staggering result, I wasn’t that far off from my predicted bike time of 2:42:00.

All superheroes have super action shots!

The dismount at T2 with shoes remaining on pedals, similar to the mount in T1, was 96% for show and 4% in actual time gained. I haven’t really practiced running barefoot or running barefooted with a bike. I winstormied 6 more positions in T2.

Finally I reached the run component. Surprisingly with the help of unseasonably cooler weather this year, I found my running rhythm pretty quick after a washroom break and was running 4:20s per km pace. I was feeling great and even skipped some aid stations.

At about 7km into the run, the female leader Magali Tisseyre was nearly going to lap me on the two laps run course, so I had to step up the pace slightly to about 4:15s per km pace to not get chick lapped. The cheers grew louder for the female champion finishing sprint as I ran further to do another lap. You could feel a turbo boost with the energy from the crowd.



During the second lap, a nagging injury became apparent on my right foot which I had had earlier in the week. I ran through it (and knew the pain wouldn’t go away) because finishing was worth the PB. I winstormied 17 more positions on the run, finishing in the top 50! Again, despite a few challenges, I bridged all the gaps and nobody could sustain a pass on my run to the finish line. I was more stoked that my time had read 4:57:40 and felt like a champ. My predicted run time was 1:28:00 and was also only a little over a minute off from that pace.



Overall this race was a milestone achievement. I’ll admit most of the credit goes out to the bike. In the end, I was beat by the female team, but there’s absolutely no shame when you are beat by the best while giving your best effort.

I have to thank my dad for these awesome action shots. A special congrats to all the participants from the club in both the half and sprint distances for achieving pbs and new distances. Also a special thanks goes to all the volunteers, there were many from the club.

 My sister and I have yearly tanning competition for being the darker one. I usually lose late into the summer when the midsummer sun blasts out. But this year it looks promising.

Race report: New Balance Victoria Half-Iron

Date/Time: June 20, 2010, 6:45 am
Weather: 10ish and cloudy
Distance: Half IM
Gun time: 5:05:04 <--check it new half im pb
Swim: 38:13 (2:01 per 100m pace)
T1: 2:07
Bike: 2:49:13 (30.8 km/hr)
T2: 1:26
Run: 1:34:07 (4:45 per km)
Age Group: 4/7
Overall: 79/401

I always knew that training makes a difference, it’s only this year I started to truly appreciate the benefits.

The Victoria half ironman is the first event in this distance that I’ll be able to compare myself to a previous year’s result, barring against variables such as slight course change and weather conditions of course.

My training duration between the months of January and May looks something like this:
Swim 49hrs (+ 53.5% from 2009)
Bike 65hrs (+58.5% from 2009)
Run 42hrs (+35.8% from 2009)

And the comparison of Victoria half im from the two years.

Hey presto! Two big factors for such a dramatic difference. The first being that last year, I had very little time to train leading up to Victoria since I was on a weeklong vacation the week beforehand. This was partly due to bad planning on my part. The second being is simply more training and better familiarity of the race course.


Race morning was eventful. Going on a training ride the day before to scope out the bike course with some friends, I somehow applied my oh-so mighty brute force and yanked my crank off its moorings (or a fancy way of saying I lost a very critical bolt). And luckliy or unluckliy I did go on the training ride, the bike mechanic from Trek named Bill ordered in some used bolts just for me but none of them had fit. He told me it was a very specialized bolt, so I should try my luck the next morning. Race morning my day came down to two bolts, the first candidate didn't work. Then I saw a big smile from Bill and knew the second one had work. Big thanks goes out to Bill from the Trek bike tent. Crisis averted!

A perfect weapon.

The swim felt dreadful. Swimmers were passing me left and right, all I could do was to hang on and play human dodgeball. I swam with a bit of fear and that motivated me to go faster. Surprisingly this swim is my fastest open water swim pace at 2:01 per 100m. The draft benefit with 400 other swimmers was amazing.

The only picture I'm not smiling.

Surprisingly, despite a harder bike course for this year’s event, improvements were all around. Perhaps a little experience came in handy. Racing in Shawnigan a couple weeks beforehand also had helped me fine tuned my performance for Victoria, as I achieved one of my fastest transition times ever, which is always a good confidence booster. It’s a good thing I worked on this hidden fourth discipline because it very well could have been the difference between pb’ing or not. I learned the swim cap and goggles inside wetsuit sleeve trick from this video!



All the half ironers met an unkind monstrous 400m long 80 m vertical hill detour on the bike course near the airport, TWICE. This little beast destroyed my legs for the run and I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty for the run, while doing the second of the two lap bike course.

Boltin' away! Okay no more bolt jokes.

The run course was absolutely gorgeous. Running around Elk Lake was very enjoyable despite the very bricky legs I was talking about earlier off the bike. My legs locked up and I had to stop for a moment at the 1km marker. I survived the next 2km to reach the next aid station and only then I was able to get my rhythm back. Eventually I was holding about 4:39 /km pace for the first lap, and subsequently I was averaging 4:45 /km pace overall on the run course. Not bad, but there is room for improvements. Stayed tuned for Vancouver!

I love the run!

I’m tickled by the fact I will be racing on my new bike.

My new friend!

My friends were already giving a lot of crap about not racing on it for Victoria. My dad had convinced me earlier not to race on the new bike in Victoria just yet, because I couldn’t bear to scratch it up just yet (that new car feeling). I had everything set up as a mock run, but ah, aching heart! But come Vancouver, I’m finally ready to make the exciting debut! Look out. Look out!

Meet my new tri bike! =)

Shawnigan Lake Race Report

The much anticipated opening event of the Subaru Series kicked off at Shawnigan Lake late last month.

 Sun rise on race morning

Having already established two stellar pbs (from Sun Run and UBC Tri), I wanted to continue bringing my A-game for the swim, bike and run and not being too worried about my competition. Though I do welcome a friendly rival namely Andrew Wight. On the road/sea trip, he’d been humming tunes from Willy Wonka “A world is your imagination” just to get inside my head. I was thinking to myself, "Andrew, you really need a catchier tune if you want to get inside my head, seriously!", because I was still fixated on playing with my gps watch.

The race in Shawnigan marked an exciting battle between Andrew and I. However coming into this race, Andrew had only half the training I have in all three disciplines since January 2010. Recently having a new daughter, Andrew obviously had more important commitments. Last year Andrew peaked at the right moment in the Victoria Half and absolute dominated in his own backyard.

Andrew had crushed me in all of the three triathlons we competed in last year

Swim

We started the swim shoulder to shoulder.

The water was a little chilly but once I found some steady legs to draft, the open water swim was relatively smooth sailing. I was only metres back from Andrew walking towards T1 after the swim. Who knows, those steady legs could have very well been Andrew's.

T1

We sprinted out with our bikes and I mistakenly removed my chip while stripping my wetsuit. I figured I had to run back to retrieve it. 

Bike

I caught up to Andrew after losing a minute or two at T1 by the 10km bike mark. Eventually by our fourth and final lap, Andrew yelled out while passing me, “Com’on, Winstorm don’t you dare let me beat you!” His final two bike laps were negative splits, impressive!

Andrew’s words were motivating, however by this point I was just thinking about a pee break and I was so close to T2.

T2

I managed to bump into Andrew again while transitioning at T2. Andrew booked it out, and I booked it for a washroom break! Such a relief, now time for an epic run- time to hunt down the prey! At this point, Andrew had a 2 minute lead into the run course.

Interesting stat: both my T1 and T2 are ranked 71st place overall by time, at 4:52 and 3:45 respectively! Not sure if I should be depressed or impressed by this result.

Run

My initial goal was to run 4:30 min/km pace but slowly relaxed it to 4:40s. I caught up to Andrew by the 4km of the run course. We exchanged some words and I picked up the pace. By the 15km marker, a runner was challenging me and was about to pass me. By the tail end of the approximately 20.6km run course, it was difficult to pick up the pace since the next closest competitor was about a km ahead. I made a determined effort to hold him off and managing to keep this gap until the finish. Nobody but a lady on a relay team managed to pass me on the run course, which I’m quite pleased about.

Finish

To silent all my naysayers out there, my overall time was 5:07:46 going under my goal time of sub 5:10, and smashing my previous mark at last year’s Vancouver half (time of 5:21:01) by over 13 minutes!!

I’m so stoked about my killer time!

I finished 29th Overall and placed 2nd in my age group. Not too shabby, considering the last time I placed in any triathlon event was nearly 5 years ago. Those were certainly the glory years when I could cruise to a podium finish in the heavy-terrain mountain bike. Those were the days!

Man oh man, my finishing pose needs to look like this!

Andrew had a very respectable time 5:14:56, also finishing third in his age group. I am so happy for him!

Eric Suess was brilliant in keeping his bike a mystery until race day. All thanks to his handy bbq stove cover, which I’ll admit is a clever idea.

There must be a better backdrop

The gang

The bling

The canon

Possibly the UBC Tri Club best team showing at a Subaru series race occurred in Shawnigan Lake. Many fellow blue smurfs with the coveted snug UBC Tri-Club jumpers were absolutely rocking the tri at Shawnigan Lake.

 

From the left, Derrick Lee, Andrew Wight and I did our road trip together
From the right, Melanie Van Soeren, Vincent Lavallee, and Barry Claman

A fellow competitor, Scott Chris aka Eagle has made himself a clear force to be reckoned with all his secret rituals of barefoot running, yoga classes and rides up mountains of late! He is a swimmer turning into an all-rounder. It’s hard to forget that this is the same guy who had beaten me by a very slim 37 seconds last year in Vancouver Half IM last year after all. However, he signed up for the wrong event of the race – the Olympic distance managing to pull off a respectable 2:31:27 and placing 3rd in his age group.

Scott Chris and Celeste Pakstas smiling for the paparazzi.

Snoozing is part of Eagle’s big game plan to avoid big-league competition early in the tri-season.

Highlight of the trip: Vincent Lavallee gauges a leap to the trunk to temporary grab his jacket and to protect shotgun, not realizing Derrick had already dove into shotgun through the middle gap. Vince kindly lays the smackdown and poor Derrick is laying helplessly on the ground...

...and Vince gets robbed!

The half IM’ers including Ceilidh Curtis on the far right. Ceilidh is training for IM Canada!!

I have to thank Celeste and Andrew and their families for their generous hospitalities during this trip! Congrats to everyone who raced in Shawnigan! This adventure was so awesome!!!

Hint hint! =D