Try the Tri, Do the Du - UBC Tri/Du RRs

Yup, the double.

Photo Cred: Jensen Tung

I was inspired from both of my current roommates, as I was the last (ehem i.e. underachieving) roommate to attempt the double, which was doing more than one individual multisport event at UBC Tri/Du. A few years ago, Jon completed the Olympic and Sprint in style and also beating me in the Olympic event. Last year, Brendan signed up for both the Olympic and Sprint events! He finished 2nd in the Olympic but then got too caught up chit chatting with friends to start the sprint.

Now it was my turn.

Left: Standard, Photo Cred: Steven Durfee

Right: Duathlon, Photo Cred: Vickram Sidhu

The Standard Tri

I knew I could finish the standard in around 2 hours 15 minutes. My concern was finishing before the Duathlon start at 11am. To add to the excitement, parked cars on the run coursed delayed the race start by 45 minutes (we were waiting for the cars to be towed). That meant about a 15 minutes buffer time.


I started in the second heat in order to make the duathlon heat. I painfully watched the first heat begin swimming inside the 50m pool.

Photo Cred: Jensen Tung

Standard results:
- swim, pretty much same result as usual
- bike, 2 minutes improvement from same course last year
- run, 2 minutes improvement despite a slightly longer course.


Here's a update to the graph:

The Duathlon

After crossing the finishline from the standard event, I had about 14 minutes to get ready. I ran to get my bike moved from the standard rack to the duathlon rack. I also ran to get my race bibs switched and ate a Sweet Potato Cliff jel.

I paced myself pretty much the same as the standard. I was running on pretty tired legs. The bike I felt no push, and then a big cramp just getting off into T2. A few athletes were just behind me including my good friend Kevin, luckily I was able to run off the cramps and held on the last 5km without any more people passing me (I was 3rd overall as I got off the bike).


Good news sometimes come with some mishaps, I managed to squeak out a 9th in the Standard and 3rd in the Duathlon before being told that I wasn't allowed to race the two multisport events in a period within 36 hours by a TriBC Official.


Oh silly gee whiz, I wished somebody told me earlier, as I didn't have a clue.


Here's a little snippet from the ITU rules updated very recently...

Regardless, I was pretty happy with both of my results. Nobody can take that away from me at least. The double DQ is something I never would had thought was possible. A DQ for being a little too awesome. Ironically, the official was feeling generous and let me DQ an event of my choosing. Next year, maybe I'll just stick to something simple and just TRY sticking to DOing one multisport event. ;)

Well, keep on being awesome! :)

Last Race as a Twenty-Something - First Half RR

The First Half half-marathon on Valentine's day was my last race before entering the new decade.

The weather was pretty wet this year and I avoided going outside for as much as possible before the start. Unfortunately due to the wait for the line-ups for the washroom, I started with the 1:45 pace pack. It made for some epic crowds surfing as I had to aggressively navigate through the field between KM 2-3. I only have myself to blame for that. :/




Once clear, I was able to settle in with a group with Ellie Greenwood. We had a steady pace until the half before she took off in style. I maintained the pace and ran steady and strong despite the miserable weather.


I was aiming for a 38:20 split at 10KM and got 38:24 which was nearly on pace despite the fashionably late start. Mike ran out from N. Van to cheer us on! He said something like "keep it up and looking for a strong second half from you, Winston". 


I was thinking happy-feet as we got around Lost Lagoon, where usually this was where the legs would start to not cooperate.


Near the end, I was struggling in the last 2KM, the calves started hurting as we had to run up the final mini hills under the Granville bridge. This was a bit of a wake-up that I need to seriously do more running. A small group passes me but I cruised into the top 100 this year for the first time!


Overall I'm pretty pleased with my progression over the last few years:). Promising sign to break my long waited sub 3 marathon eventually! This year might be that year!!

Both of my more speedier roommates had a special cake for me that night! :D 



Thanks for reading! Until next time! :)

Year 2015 Recap in Some Dorky Graphs. :P

Ok friends, brace yourself for a boring post on dorky graphs. Aside from enjoying time spent with food, travel, and friends, I spend half of my time training and the other half pretty much pivot-tabling my training log data into these fun graphs gems!

1. Shoes by Year

Shoes by year is great. Here's an update of one I had going from the past. My favourites are the New Balance 1400s as I have two pairs of the first generations, one pair of the 2nd (didn't like those as much), and a new 3rd generation.

The Nike LunarRacer+3 were too good too. Forced into retirement, the strands unfortunately and eventually broke after well past its designated design life of 800km and shortly after the mesh started to rip. Shhh, don't tell anyone I got over 1500kms in those shoes. 

I also have a hierarchy system of ranking shoes and saving the "A" one for races.

Moving forward (pun intended), I'll need to invest more cushioned shoes as my mileage increases, but in the meantime I'll be sticking to the lightweight shoes.

2. Like a Cashflow Diagram but for Distance and Intensity

Something new I kept track for 2015 was the daily intensity measure, which was a self precieved effort for the day on a 1 to 5 scale.

Red meant Race Days/Time Trial Efforts,

Orange meant Lactate Threshold,

Yellow meant Intervals,

Limegreen meant Steady State, and

Green meant Easy Only Days.

You'll notice a lot of green after my two big races in Sweden and Muskoka this past year. A lot more running races this year and nicely spaced out with build weeks.

 

 

 

 3.Same as no. 2 but aggregated by Years.

Here's some yearly distance tallies for comparison. I had more hard efforts spent on running as compared to biking or swimming.

 

 

 4. Bike by Terrain

With big fitness gains, comes big responsibilities. You're noticed I biked quite a bit more this past year. I guess bike couriering, leading group rides, and teaching spin classes have certainly contributed close to additional 6000kms on top of regular commute and trainning! I have 4 years of data in terrain. Here's a couple graphs by year, and another by year and bicycle.

5. Lucky Shoes for Long Course Races

Last graph is a good one. I seem to get 3 to 4 solid long-course races with each A-ranked shoes.

I have some more boring graphs that I decided to save for next time!

First Half half-marathon is in 3 weeks. Time to start training! :)



A Letter to My Future Self - Year End Recap and Goals for 2016

Last month, I attended a networking event with a professional event planner as the guest speaker. She seemed knowleable when it comes to goal setting. She suggested that we try writing one to our future selves.


Here's a selfie letter addressed to future me a year from today...


Dearest Future Me,


Looking back, I don't think I quite pictured so much travelling opportunities for Year 2015. I can certainly put some of the blame to my friends for instigating. As a result of some ambitious planning, I was rewarded with some amazing adventures that I'll cherish for a very long time.


A 4-day trip to Maui turned into a jammed packed schedule when I blindly added more itinaries to it. From running in a local race, biking around the west volcano (note to future self, the size of it is a lot bigger than it looks on a map), and climbing up the famous Haleakala, I wanted to do it all. Future me, can you blame me? The secret to make this possible were picking up a full box of Gatoraid from Costco and practically getting no sleep during those 4 days. Brian and the rest of the engineering gang had to put with my extra-curricular cardio sheninagans.


A double red-eye flight to Sweden via Iceland doesn't sound very pleasant but we were on a budget and luckily got to see a 'corner' of Iceland during the 19 hours or so layover (another note to future self, Iceland is also much larger than it appears on a map). Jen and I checked out the boiling hot Geysers that had water bursts every 10 minutes and Gullfoss, one of most famous waterfalls in Europe. We didn't see much darkness for 50 hours as we flew above the darkness circle. We were fortunate to explore both east and west coasts of Sweden with the help of locals and to tact on that World Championships Long Distance in cute little town Motala. By absolute dumb luck, we flew in on Sweden's biggest holiday called Midsummer and enjoyed the local festivities. We made some friends with other Team Canada athletes. We took on so many modes of transportation from renting a car in Iceland, taking a ferry to Sandhamn Island east of Stockholm, embarking on a double-decker bus which had free ferry service to nearby Islands near Goteburg, not the mention the countless trains and busses. This summary blurb doesn't do justice, remind me to read Jen's full travel race recap. 


A road trip to Oregon with Derrick wouldn't be complete had we not visited Nathaniel and Sophie in Portland. We had tacted on a race in Eugene and stayed in a house transformed into a hostel. We enjoyed some food truck and voodoo doughnuts.


A trip to the land of cottage country and floating barges with motorized engines was next. Lise was able to trick me into signing up for the inaugural Ironman in Muskoka. It was more of an adequeate excuse to meet up with several other friends along the trip including Vince, Hector, Claire and Andrew.


Some highlights this year are definitely breaking most of my running PBs (ie. 5k,8k,10k,half,full marathon), qualifying for a Duathlon Worlds AG spot, cracking top 100 in an Ironman for the first time (50th without the pros in Muskoka), and finishing as 2nd top Canadian in the Worlds Long Distance Triathlon in Sweden. 


Despite all these adventures and many personal acomplishments, I know, future me, you see this large monkey on my back still. I've been told by one or two local professional athletes particularly that they see potential in me, but I smile way too much in races. I apparently should be pushing harder. The fitness is there, it's a question of will power and determination. I think for 2016, I'll need to crank out (pun intended there) a few solid local performances. I.e less travelling and more local races and more painful suffering. 


Realistically, I want to aim to:
A - qualify for 2017 Worlds in Penticton.
B - get those sub 3 hour marathon and sub 10 hour ironman monkeys off my back.


The time has come. No more sandbagging and soft pedalling.


PS - Two exciting things on the 2016 calendar is Boston Marathon and I'll be an ambassdor for TRS Racing Team next year. TRS Racing team is an international amateur triathlon team. I'm also signed up for Great White North and know I'll be competing against some friends for those coveted qualifier spots!


In the meantime, I'll be keeping busy learning and networking as always. My career is certainly left a little idle these days, but I know there will be many opportunities for 2016. It's time to chase them, which is both scary and exciting.


Wish me luck! 


Sincerely,
Winston (me!)

Bonus race - Rock 'N' Roll Vancouver RR

A side note: Thanks to Triathlon BC, I managed to snatch up a last minute entry into the race.

Alas, my very first entry into the popular RNR series. My training was a bit all over the place leading up to this one, but I survived the half marathon in Vancouver late last month. My overall impression of the race was a positive one.


The post-race beer garden and concert festival reminded me of the marathon majors atmosphere like Boston and Chicago. More than the usual race, many local bands were sprinkled along the half marathon route. However, I overheard after the race from some hardcore RNR old timer that this race lacked some music along the course compared to others RNR races. Haha jeez, tough sell!

There were two distances to choose from, i.e. a 10k on Saturday and a half on the Sunday. This was the second year since RNR took over the existing 10k James Cunningham Seawall Race.

Only after finishing the race did I realize what all the fuss was about, hidden inside a few white tents set up near the finish area. Runners can claim their serious additional bling, which were dished out for competing in multiple races in their series. I have to admit that as a first timer to this brand, I was a bit jealous of the bling but of course I didn't earn them. Ironman has a lot to learn from these guys.

I didn't do my homework before the race, but check out #RunForTheBling which has a whole whack of medals. One for doing both 10k and half races organized over the weekend. One for doing the ones on the west coast. Another for a World Rocker. My goodness there was one for everyone. To entice you some more, they also offer a packaged tourpass to save money.

******Anyways enuff of the long spiel, onto the race recap!******

This race had a comfortable 4hour limit and a start time at 8:15am. The race was broken into several waves based on finishing times. Weather was pleasant and dry.

First thing I did was a little warmup jog towards the morning clothing bag-drop trucks after parking my car a few kilometres away.

The volunteer at the table for the G-H last names truck asked for my name. And by absolute luck someone repeats "Winston Guo" after I had said it. It was my good friend Kevin, fellow triathlete who was there competing as well. I barely recognized anyone in a field of 5k people until that point. All of us, triathletes even disguised into proper running attire, really do stick out like sore thumbs, eh? Awesome. :)

The race felt very much like the sun run. Similar downtown area and absolutely no space for pre-race curb stretching without asking politely.

Shaun. during spin class, mentioned about the survivor story of a man from last year's event. At the startline tent next to the announcer, two very special people were given a celebrity introduction. Apparently, a man collapsed during the race last year and a doctor who was running near him stopped and performed CPR. The man survived and ran with the doctor in the race for this year.

I squeezed my way into the first wave and just behind the elites. Jen was there! I wished her good luck and asked her to move closer upfront with the other elites.


The course was generally a large clockwise loop starting on Hastings Street between Burrard and Thurlow, pops into scenic Gastown, ramps up the Dunsmir viaduct, and wraps around the seaside seawalls, cuts onto Pipeline road, and finally finishes at Stanley Park seawall near Devonian Harbour Park, right next to Stanley Park.

1-3km - It was a slight downhill towards Gastown along Alexander and Railway Streets. I held back efforts and watched the pack comfortably.

4km - Once reaching Powell Street turnaround, there was slight hill on route back. You could catch a glimpse of the leaders at this point. Someone joked to me "Still not too late to catch them" - I laughed and thought haha yeah right. #nochance

7km - We ran up the Dunsmuir Viaduct. A medium climb but the efforts still felt strong and steady.

8km - I could still see Jen running the entire way only about 10-20 metres ahead. We did a mini loop around the viaduct onto the Carrall Street Greenway. There was a pack of runners running with her. Jen pulls out to tie her shoes, only then must I pass her for the time being. I was secretly hoping to hang on with her within sighting distance for as long as possible.

9-11km - I catch up to former UBCTCer run coach Ivrin. He was looking strong and we exchanged places like yo-yo. At this point, I was still holding strong. Jen passes me again undernaeth the Granville bridge. I was still feeling good as this was my previous home turf training grounds that I would do all the time.

12-13km - Still holding strong but the pace fades a little bit along the seaside English Bay area.

16-17km - The infamous Pipeline Road, which had the biggest elevation gain of the route. I just couldn't recover after this point as my foot pain started. I no longer had the punch in my legs like the first 12kilometres.

18-21.1km - Runners were passing me. It wasn't pretty!

Where is that doctor?! I wanted to collapse at this point of the race too!

I lost most of my time on the last 5k, from being on pace with a couple minutes faster than my PB time, to missing my PB time entirely. It's one of those embarrassing races! Argh you can say! Butter fingers and choking epic-ally near the finish. Had I ran a less positive split for the race, it would had felt a lot better. Well I know a future PB is certainly within me.


No words. The nerdy graph doesn't lie...

In short summary, the hills killed my steady pacing. It's not a fast course like the First Half.


Thanks for reading!



Kevin and I enjoying some post race "Windstorm" beer, as the sign indicates.

The Sunrise Run - Goodlife Fitness Victoria 8K Road Race RR

Some exciting news to share before I get onto the race report from the Victoria 8K over the long Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

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1 - I am mostly moved in with my roommate Brendan. Living with a professional triathlete certainly is inspiring. Aside from the frequent feverish boring talk on light cardio related topics, Brendan would often bake these amazing recipes virtually from scratch, from his big white textbook, NY best seller - Joy of Cooking. Yummy treats like pumpkin pies, apple crisp, homemade pizza, and I threaten to "v"-log it to provide a means of supplemental income for him. Still haven't acted on it though...

2 - On top of my morning bike courier breakfast deliveries, with huge help from Brendan I've managed to picked up another moonlight job as a Spin Instructor at the local bike shop Westpoint Multisport. I've survived teaching (and participating) in 4 brutal classes so far and enjoy it a lot! With minimized time for training, my workouts have been a bit more focused. The same can't be said for that still odd water exercise called swimming.

3 - A special shout out to Jon Heinz, who is currently in India. He will be our third and final roommate when he returns to the country, whenever that might be. In the meantime, he kindly requested that I blog more frequently for strictly selfish reasons. That is so that he can keep tabs of my training and make sure I don't get ahead of him. Good to know there's at least one reader of mine out there. :) 

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Is an 8K road race even worth blogging about? 

Shameless to admit, sure it is! I've never actually ran a distance less than 10k officially (by officially I mean when there's verifiable public proof i.e. online chip-timed results). 

Given if I finish, 8k was going be an another distance to put in the PB books for this year. My only obstacles are: 
- the 6-hour time cut-off, 
- and ensuring no kids in their early teens photo-bomb my pictures. 

It's totally okay when older men and ladies beat me, but I think the kids need to earn their spot on the ladder pecking order if they want it enough to beat me. :P 

There are the classic half and full marathon distances as well, it's ironic that the regular full marathoners get less time than us 8Kers with only 5:29 to finish or else they need to go to the early start.

Katrina, Eric and I opted for an afternoon ferry to get onto the Island. Jen should had joined us too, but unfortunately caught a bad bug leading up to the race and smartly decided to take some recovery time instead. We visited Theresa's new place and had a nice pre-race pasta with her. I can conclude that a dietary nutritionist certainly has all the kitchen gadgets imaginable. 

I also re-united with our Canada House roommate from Sweden this year, Karmen. It's funny because now I've bumped into or seen all of our fabulous housemates since Sweden (Jen, Hector, Claire, Alyssa, and now Karmen). Talk about a small triathlon community here in Canada. Karmen and Jim was just the most amazing hosts for my stay and only a short jog to the start line on Belleville Street. 

Super runners Jen and Mike have told me that this 8K course is not exactly the fastest with some minor hills to negotiate. Their take-home tip was to approach it like it was a 10K race. 

It's a brutal start only if you compare yourself to the later risers doing the marathon. 
7:15am for us. I wore arm warmers in 12 degrees C and thought I could do without them. 

The course starts near the finish area, westbound on Belleville Street, a few zig zaggy turns for the first kilometre and smooths out on Dallas Road. The turnaround at Beacon Hill Park is just before Cook Street with a gentle hill.

Overall it's still a fast out and back course that warps around the scenic oceanfront.

I channeled the "so-smooth" running style mentioned by the commentators when streaming some of the Kona action the day before.

Interesting pace work for an 8k, and nothing like the super conservative starts of a typical marathon. Everyone near the front wave went out hard during the first two kilometres. Suicidal pace going sub 3:30s. The pace settles quickly and the gap opens and the pack thins into linear fashion by only 3K for me. I was running in the 3:30s to 3:40s per K.

Hearing Steve King's voice at the finish was nice. It wasn't pretty but I squeaked out a sub 29 minutes. Luckily, I did manage to win my *gender* age-group (the lead girl in this age group absolutely crushed it). It was a lot of fun. Slowpoke long course athlete posing in the shorter distance. I think I could had easily held on for another 2k if it was a 10K race. But, I still need to do some serious intervals if I want to figure out a clue to get any faster.

Eric and I got to relax and chill for the rest of the morning and cheer on Katrina and the rest of the marathoners.

Thanks for reading. Shameless again, I just couldn't refuse a cheap entry and I'm looking forward to the Rock and Roll Half this weekend. :D

Happy fall running!

Big Move and Racing Cottage Country - Muskoka IM RR

August sure was a busy month! Not only was I stoked for this inaugural full-iron Muskoka race at the end of month, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to move in with one of my best friends Brendan. It was an awful taper plan but I made it worked.

Long story short, my fabulous friends from both ends of the country were able to help me out, big time. Definitely stating the obvious here but don't try to move and do an ironman in the same month on your own. :P

Sunrise Swim for Hospice

Andrew, Lise and I arrived in cottage country in Huntsville early and we had some time to kill. Andrew wanted to smash some beers as a new pre-race ritual. Even I decided to join in on the smashin' action (only 1 beer for me) at On the Docks Pub, which was in the heart of the town of Huntsville with a scenic view of the water. At the pub, Lise shamelessly signed us all up online for Sunrise Swim for Hospice, which was like Huntsville's version of Kona's "underwear" charity event.

The event was surprisingly very well organized with a guest speaker and good music and more food than you can imagine. We chit-chatted and made some local friends as this was their go-to swim spot.

The coolest propelled floating barge was used as a coffee/tea post swim hangout spot.

Pre-Race

We stayed at a cabin, err cottage about 8km along the bike route from the expo resort area. The owner was great and shared a little bit of the rich history of the property. We learned that between the two nearby lakes exist the Guinness World record for the shortest railway line in the world. 

The water temperature was perfect for wetsuit swimming. The swim was also flat as a pancake and had no currents to worry about.

I was nervous but excited as I haven't done one in over 14 months. I seem to have a bad memory and always forget how hard these races are. I rode a bit of the bike course from Dwight Beach to SeeBreeze. The little SeeBreeze out and back was added subsequently to make the bike course the full 180km. Dwight Beach was pretty bumpy at times and you needed to pick your lines carefully to find the smoother patches. We drove the remainder bits from Baysville to the end of the two-lap-bike loop. 

Deerhurst Resort

Car was parked at a nearby unused air strip and then we got shuttled in. It was neat that the transitions tents were actually inside the Deerhurst Resort. We snaked our way into the swim start. I followed Lise into the front of the 1:10 corral to find her mom (credit for below pic).

Rolling Start Swim

Only 10 athletes were permitted to start at a time, which was slow. Andrew must had started near the front. Lise just made the group in front of me. I had to wait about a minute until the next release. Apparently they were too causal and eventually started rushing people to get them all out by 7am.

A very peaceful swim in Peninsula Lake and the buoys were easy to spot. I had no problem swimming. The problem was getting a good draft behind a big pack. Simple rectangle clockwise loop. We got out onto the 18th hole and got stripped on the greens. Luckily Lise's mom was able to spot me and help me get my wetsuit off. I scraped my elbow in an embarrassing fall a couple weeks earlier during a run across Burrard Bridge and had to gingerly peal off the neoprine.  

Flew Up the Hill in Transitions

Hector, who I met in Sweden this year, cheered me on at the hill towards the Deerhurst Resort. A solid 300m run up a little hill. I was moving quickly. The little spot inside just for me was good as not many people had arrived yet. I had no idea of my swim time at the time.

Taken Eve of Race

Beauty and the Beast Bike

The stick and lollipop two loop bike course consisted of small climbs + technical decents at Dwight Beach for the first third. One soul tried passing me at a technical turn of one of the descents and I was not impressed as he could had easily done it before or after the downhill turn. The locals definitely enjoyed a slight home course advantage as I was still struggling to pick my lines to avoid the killer bumps on the roads.

Silly SeeBreeze section out and back was when I got a time-check on my friends. A glimpse of Andrew biking in the other direction looking about 10 minutes ahead. Lise must had been a few minutes ahead at that point.

It took me a good 90 minutes to catch Lise on the bike. It meant that she absolutely killed it on the swim (1:03). I didn't exactly have a bad swim either, going about 7 minutes quicker than my best. The 4k pull swims this year has helped.

The second third of the loop consisted of Hwy 35 into Dorset and Hwy 117 out of Dorset. This stretch gets a bit flatter and more exposed. The second lap was when I felt a gust into my sails. My fingers getting numb and mind temporary loosing the ability to push. I had to take a good 1 minute break at the potty to get it back together for the last third.

The killer head winds from the last 2nd third would had meant a little tail wind on the trip back into Deerhurst. Yeah wishful thinking. Forested and more hillier. It's like the course knew, and took it away. The race was super fair, I don't think much unintentional drafting occurred as the people were all thinned out. 5 bikes length between everyone was plenty of space! 

My Way or the Highway Run

Two lap course consisted of mostly highway road (from Deerhurst Resort to Huntsville twice basically). I enjoyed the ends as there were lots of people cheering. The middle parts were unkind to say the least. 

It wasn't the run time I wanted, but at least I had good style. It was really nice of Jen to remind me my own words that the run required running "tough". I initially took the first 10k extremely easy. The thing is everyone gets jumpy coming out of T2 and wants to hold a strong pace. A guy that passed me early on running at 4 low minutes pace ended up only running 2 minutes quicker than me in the overall marathon. I just applied the brakes early on and held onto that slow pace that for as long as possible. Slow and steady worked for me. Slowly runners were turning into walkers but I held a steady pace. 

Highway heat and some rollers to get there wasn't exactly the easiest running. About 7km into the run was where one of our Hospice friends was cheering us on, Catherine! Andrew was the most encouraging runner out there, he gave me a turbo burst with his outgoing energy and words of encouragement. 

I enjoyed every little cloud cover that we would have from time to time. Stuffed ice in a few unmentionable places. 

Nerdy graph comparison to previous PB

Overall, not quite the sub 10 time I was aiming for but I'll take 10:18. First time in an Ironman cracking top 100 (finished 50th but no pros field) and better than top 10 in my age category (7th). I still have some room for improvement and to push harder for next time. :) Slowly creeping up the ranks. :D

It was nice catching up with a few familiar faces. Reconnected with Claire, nice to see her bounce back after Sweden, and with Kevin, former president of ubctc team.

Thanks for the continued support and for tuning in again. Time for some serious down time. :)