Sunday, July 29, 2012

HammerFest 2K12

Welcome to HammerFest 2K12!   One week where I try and work out as much as possible.  Total hammertime for the entire week.  It has to be a week where the boys are up with my parents.  I got lucky this year that I didn't have any customers at work.  The weather cooperated pretty well.  Only had a few hiccups in the schedule, but came pretty close to all my goals.

Swim
11,000 yards, 4 swims, 4:19
Swam Mon, Wed, Fri, and Sat.  Swims went pretty well.  Did a 1,650 time trial on Sat they went well (for me).  Hit it in 32:19, or 1:57's.  Felt pretty pleased about that

Bike
266.2 miles, 5 rides, 12:22
Biked Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat, and Sun.  Didn't get rained out, though I did get rained on.  Got home late on Wed, so rode about 10M short.  Made up for that on Fri and Sun.  Saturday's long ride got cut short because my rear derailleur cable broke about 50M in.  I got in 70M but was hoping for 85M.  Pretty pleased with the week.  Overall average of 21.5 for the week.  Fri tempo was 22.2 oal (20M in 23.8).  Long ride Saturday was 21.4.  Even Sunday didn't feel like I was dying.

Run
40 miles, 4 runs, 4:38
Ran Tues, Thu, Sat, and Sun.  Got a good 15M run in on Tues under 7's.  Thur Tempo was disappointing due to the heat.  Sat intervals went well even in the heat.  Sundays 6M brick run was good at 6:45's.  Got some good heat training in.  Good mileage and my hip felt good.

Lift Weights
3 Lifts, 1:00
Managed to get all my lifts in!

Total
312.4 miles, 13 SBR workouts, 22:20 total
Quite the time total!  Feel great about the week even with cutting my long ride 15M short.  Pretty tired on Sunday afternoon to say the least.  Now time to rest for Stumpy Creek Oly next weekend!

Monday, July 16, 2012

Christmas in July!!!!

So I was on vacation the entire week of July 4th.  I did have internet access, so I could check my email (which I did every day, plus my work email, but let's not get into that).  So on Monday July 2nd I got the email that my FLO wheels had shipped!  They were coming USPS and it said expected delivery on July 11th, a Wednesday.  I ordered back in February as I posted on it here.

So I was quite excited to say the least.  I followed the USPS tracking all week.  Well if you ever tracked anything with a USPS number, as opposed to a UPS number, you will know that it really doesn't give you much information.  So basically it was put on a truck in Las Vegas and slowly made its way to the Carolinas.  Not really any update until like Sunday when suddenly it said they would be delivered the next day, which was a couple of days early.  So when I got home, this was on my doorstep:

Oh the excitement!  It literally felt like Christmas morning when you were a kid!  I basically couldn't do anything else until I opened the boxes.   

Two boxes and one weighs more than the other.  Must be a 60 and a 90!


The Brothers mentioned that there was a delay from the Factory in Taiwan and that they had shipped via Air to save a couple of weeks.  I guess they weren't lying!



So I popped open the the first box:

And it was beautiful!

So as you can see, a Front 60 and a Rear 90.  Plus they also sent skewers and rim tape.  But it wasn't really rim tape, it was basically a round elastic band that fit around the rim with an opening for the valve.  That was really nice.  I think it works a lot better than rim tape.  You just have to work the hole around to the right spot because it moves as you are putting it on.

Front FLO 60



Rear Flo 90

Now if that doesn't make Green Lightning look like a BAMF, nothing will.  I used Vittoria Latex tubes with 51mm stems.  I put a 30mm Tufo extender on the front and a 60mm Tufo extender on the rear.  The tires are Michellin Pro 3 Race "Flash Yellow".  I thought the flash yellow would be closer to lime green, but that didn't quite work out.  Luckily the green on the FLO is a pretty close match to my B16.  I also got a Ultegra 11-25 cassette that I put on there so I can swap the wheels out pretty quickly

I can literally swap out the set in about 5 minutes.  The brakes are easy to adjust.  The rear I just have to open all the way and the front I just have to adjust about 3/4 of the way out.  So no clearance issues at all (thankfully!)

I got thunderstormed out on my first planned ride on Friday night, which I was ultra bummed out about.  Especially since on Saturday morning I had a long ride planned, so I didn't ride them then.  So Sunday morning I finally put them on for a 50M ride.

They ride so smooth and clean.  You can accelerate almost instantly on a flat or slight downgrade.  I wasn't super fast in them as my legs were pretty tired from the 80M ride the previous morning and a tempo run in the afternoon.  I do like the sound.  It's not overwhelming, but it is definitely distinct.  I do have a little trouble getting into the 11 gear sometimes.  If I stop pedaling for split second and start back up again it seems to pop in.  I'll have to look into that.

I plan on hammering them on a tempo ride next Friday night to really put them to the test.  Can't wait for that.  Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't show off my father's day present: Bike Stickers!


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Wawasee Flotilla Road Race Report

Every year my family spends the Fourth of July at my parents' summer place in Syracuse, Indiana.  It's somewhat of a tradition.  They have a local road race sometime that week.  It's typically on a Saturday, so sometimes we miss it as we are traveling.

This year they had it on the day of the Fourth, so we were in town for it.  They have a 3.3 mile and an 8 mile race.  3.3 is just basically due to the logistics of the course.  This is the cheapest, most stripped down race you can possibly run nowadays.  $12 early entry and $15 on race day.  No timing chips.  Not even race numbers.  They give you a card with your overall finish at the end and then it is up to you to fill out your name, sex and age so they can figure out all the places.  Now that's Old School, baby!

Its a lot of fun.  I've done both the 3.3 and the 8 over the years.  The 3.3 course is the same as the triathlon run course that I did last August.  The 8 mile follows the 3.3 and then goes out to a park, loops around and then back the same way you came.  That 8M course is new for me as they changed it the last couple of years.

I haven't done a running race since the Charlotte Marathon.  So I thought it would be pretty good test.  Plus if nothing else it would be a great tempo run workout.  I set my goal at 50 minutes (6:15's).

It was quite humid on race morning, but not too hot.  My sister made up t-shirts for everyone to wear.  Everyone in the family that was at the cabin (my parent's place) participated.  Everyone else did the 3.3M run/walk.  So we had 11 family members on the course.  I was especially proud of my wife and kids.  My wife really ran hard as the elliptical training has been paying off.  Her legs have been sore for days now.  My boys completed the 3.3 mile course all by themselves.  Very impressive.

Everyone started together.  The first mile was relatively flat and you always have a bunch of people going out too hard.  Plus you have a lot of people just running 3.3 miles.  My Garmin kept telling me I was going too fast.  I tried to reel it in a bit, but came through the first mile in 5:55.  Good show of leg speed, but not exactly on pace.  2nd mile was better, right at 6:12.

All of mile 3 goes along the north shore of Lake Syracuse.  It has the only real hills on the course, and my time reflected that in a 6:26.  At this point with the heat and how tired I felt already, I thought maybe I was going to blow up and start running 7's or 7:30's.  I really didn't think about the hills and how maybe that had slowed me some.  But past the mile 3 marker it gets pretty flat.  So the next 3 miles I reeled off in 6:17, 6:18, and 6:20.  So at mile 6, I was pretty much right on pace for 6:15's.

During mile 7 I lost some time (maybe focus?) and ran a 6:26.  I recovered some in the last mile and put in a 6:14 to come home officially in 50:15.  Garmin had 8.02 miles and had me at 50:09.5 for 8.00 miles.  Pretty close to my goal.  Not perfect splits, but at the end of the day I will take it.

I came in 7th overall and won my age group.  I didn't feel too sore, but was quite tired the rest of the day.  Not too bad though, as we left that night after the fireworks around 11pm for the 660 mile trek back home.