Training Log Archive: O Steve!

Kari and I at Elm Creek....beginner loop in 12:20 and the intermediate/advanced loop in 63:28 for a total loop best of 1:15:48...pushed pretty hard, surprised that my HR was only 133.....

mildly unenthusiastic trail run....legs still trashed from the Adventure run....up and around Brownie plus via east cedar........17 day in a row of training...

Stroller run with Syd and Kari....skirt LOI and Calhoun shorelines with a stop to take a picture of the sea monster in LOI in front of the skyline and swings for Syd at calhoun...

I have gone 16 days straight working out...

easy run down kenilworth to mary tyler moore and around LOI.....

despite my sore legs from yesterdays Adventure run, Kari convinced me to do some hill repeats at Kenwood hill.....she did 15 full ones and I did 15 partial ones with poles, ski imitation....figure it would help prep my arms also....she would run the full hill and run back and catch me 2/3rs up and we walked/recovered down the hill together...

...boy!...I ran/moved as hard as I could and managed some solid navigation despite an AT haze....my 162 avg HR for 1:40 matched my full on Triathlon effort from last weekend where I averaged 162 for 1:16...

so the good news is I feel good about the result...the bad news is if I was perfect on the navigation running "full out" I would only have been 6 minutes faster...doesn't buy much...

How do the front runners handle the rocky "if I try to go any faster on these rocks I am going to break something and be left for dead out here" ground?...they weren't even smooth rocks...they were jagged Killer rocks....really had to slow to "scramble over, pick my way through" some rocky boldery areas...

Navigation was solid except...

-going to #2 I should have gone around on the trail....I was with Erin and the ground was to rocky to move through quickly off trail...I blamed her for convincing me this was a better idea...
-I lost :30 when I ran the wrong way on a trail for a moment after 8 going to 9...dumb...but did not lose much...
-11...how many rocky knolls can you fit into an area noted on the maps as having one hill?...quite a few is the answer....just kept moving up..minor time loss..
-the biggie was 12 to 13 for me....I tried to straight line it after moving a bit west to get down into the steep sided creek ravine....should have gone directly SE to the trail like Erin did...again the terrain was white but slow with boulders and I had to curl back into it as I ended just SW of the control...the trail route was much faster....lost most of the 6 minutes lost here.....not so much a nav problem as a route choice problem...

The rest went good and I out sprinted Steve P to the finish by :04...not sure how that happensed since I believe hs is faster than me also...

C • splits comparison 5

Long Adventure Run - Splits

6 trips up mt gilboa and 2 full laps....Kari had Syd in the kelty and I had an 12 lb pack...Syd slept a bit.....

C • Good! 2

48:49 for the Hopkins loop....not bad for an average effort....

took off for Elm Creek after work...15:27 on the beginner loop and then 1:07:00 on the intermediate loop....

I signed up for a circuit training class at St Louis park comm ed....good thing to do in the dark and cool Fall....only 6 people showed and after the class was over the insturctor said that they did not get the minimum 10 that they needed and this was the one and only class........bummer...it .seemed to work for me.....now I am back looking for another class or figuring out something else to get is some training hours for the Fall and late Fall....

bike over to Wirth and two loops....easier recovery ride...21:10 and 20:38 loop times.........

262 days so far this year, over 264 hours of training..I am going to have to keep it up to make 365 hours for the year...

Kari and I ran the Wirth mt bike trail and then some....happened upon a guy in the woods in a speedo who was...um...well.....having a good time all by himself.....we detoured quickly....

C • Guy 1

One last Tri at Big Marine Park near WOB park....

cool and drizzly but I know from experience this can work to my favor...you get wet on the swim anyway and I know that if you work hard on the bike you actually stay pretty warm...and the run is great if its cold...for me anyway.....

this was going to be my sprint triathlon of the year where I was going to go for it...figuring I wold get enough specific training in to have decent preperation to do well...Was hoping to go for a podium spot in Age Group but when attendance zoomed to over 500 sign ups and Age groups being 10 year rather than 5 year I figured realisticaly that was out the window...

so I set a goal of placing in the top 20% overall in the field and top 25% in my Age group....

the swim start was kind of a cluster....with chip timing we were supposed to start one at a time by alphabetical order every 5 seconds...when the event partiicpant zoomed from 173 finishers to over 500 sign ups I guess they figured out that they would start us in alphabetical order 5 at a time......ok, no problem.....BUT what actually happen is that people lined up and since they had a mat on the beach to start your timing people just lined up and went when they wanted to.....I was watching the first 60 or so people line up and go and looked out in the water to see a sea of bobbling heads to swim through....so, without much thinking I just jumped in and started as everyone kinda slowly poured across the start line...very disorganized....but oh well....

the swim had a long shallow water run out and I dolphined into the mess of green clad beanie swim caps and began to swim.....boy it was cold!...I have a full wetsuit but I could feel my "asthma wheeze" kicking up a bit as I concentrated on swimming a good line throught the crowd...

turns out it was well short of the advertised 600 yards (and I like a bit longer swim because its my best sport) and I was up and running the knee high water finish to the shore and crossing the timing mat on the beach in 7 minutes flat....95th of 423 finishers on the swim....decent but nothing spectacular and I actually only swam about 6 minutes of that time....

ok...this made my year.....guess who had THE FASTEST transition of 476 finishers.....

thats right...yours truly.....the "magician of transition"...apparently even the elite youguns cant match my "wetsuit strip and jump on the bike" skillzzz.....BOOM!

C • OFY! 1

Off I go and I dog fight with one fellow almost the entire way....the bike feels good....we are moving along...I almost overplay my speed a bit and put in in the weeds on a big downhill curve...I am more of a risk taker on downhills when I am on the clock....fairly flat course with one rolling, twisty section thrown in for fun....

just as I figured the cold drizzle rain is no problem really...I am warm enough on the bike although my feet go a bit numb..

the best bike split in the triathlon is just under 35 minutes so I am only 7:45 behind that....95th of 423 finishers...I average just under 21 mph for the 14.75 mile bike...

I always wonder why I can Time Trial on my tri bike much better than my mt bike....some of it may be my weakness in hills and my triathlon bike and Hed 3/disk wheel set up is better equipment than my mt bike but it does not explain everything....for example, last week at the wolf man triathlon the best mt bike split was 52:25 and I went 1:16:54....that would be comparable to a split of about 51 minutes whereas I went 42:45 at this triathlon...

...not quite as stunning as T1 but it required a long run with the bike (and my running sucks and that is where I bleed time in transitions) but I still had the 10th best transition time of 476 due to amazing "shoe putting on" skillz.......

C • Don't underestimate 1

Out onto the run on numb feet in my racing flats that are barely on my feet (I use elastic laces and my racing flats fit like slippers..)

I am assuming we will run the paved bike run trail around the park and that is how it starts but we evenually head off on some 2 track trail through the woods and I am thinking "well, I should know how to run trails more than most triathletes...I worry that my slipper racing flats will not stay on my feet and are not the best if this trail gets muddy. I guess I inadvertantly became one of those minimalist runners because there is not much to these shoes at 5 oz....but after awhile it feels kinda good.....

we go back on paved trail but end up back off trail again for an extended section before the finish and I manage a 8:15/mile pace for 5K off the bike and that makes me smile....that went a bit better than I would have suspected...very happy with this run and it gives me hope for the future...

I end up 80th of 423 finishers hitting my top 20% goal and manage a 3rd of 22 in my age group of 50-59...placing and hitting my age group goal of top 25% easily....

162 average on the HR for the event...seems about where I run these days in these type of events....total time 1:16:54 for me with a winning time of 59:02...

C • Well done. 4

checked out the tri bike for tomorrow...new tubulars feel smooooth.......

the final installment of the MM...

We had just gathered the 5th control of 8 on the final day and heading for the home stretch...control #5 had been an easy gathering control at a trail intersection and the next two controls were located on opposite sides of Lingmooor Fell before we dropped down to the finish...at this point we knew we were going to finish barring any navgation catastrophe and I was feeling upbeat despite despite the heavy fatigue...

We followed an obvious path through the valley and a campground to the base of Lingmoor Fell...this is the only point on the course where we intersected with a very public area....



The next step was to switchback up the shoulder of Lingmoor and we trudged it slowly but consistently along with other teams...we then followed a path around the south side of Lingmoor Fell to avoid the unclimable rocky face of Side Pike before another steep climb following a fence to the a ridge...



The last shot here shows the next steep climb...



After the climb and gaining the ridge just to the east of the rocky cone of Side Pike we intersected a path continuing up the ridge and climbed a gate crossing to the north side...

The next control was located at another small tarn on the northern flank of Lingmoor Fell and this is the one navigational bobble I had that cost us some time...

...at some point we needed to leave the ridge path and contour around the northern flank to locate the tarn...my first instinct was to take a bearing from the gate crossing (a good attack point) and straight line to the tarn but the ground was rocky and I was concerned about getting cliffed out (and I promised Kari I would not route us to some possible exposure) so I decided to continue up the ridge on the path and climb higher before veering off on a bearing hoping that higher ground and that route would not expose us to a cliff (and another team was doing this also which influenced me)....the problem was that we did not have any solid attack point and started looking for a safe place to "go off path" to navigate to the tarn....

after a few hesitant moves to head off the path I eventually I decided we likley had gone far enough and very hesitantly set a bearing and began to contour to the tarn...our sight lines had been good the enitre event but the undualating ground which surrounded the tan which obscured the view and I was very hesitant searching for some clue we were on the right route to the control. Tthe last thing I wanted to do was miss the control and cause more distannce and climb because we were already feeling it physically......lots of other teams were also hunting and pecking for the tarn and we eventually happened upon a control in a reentrant...another team and I discussed the likelihood that this was our control, each knowing it wasn't but someone had to drop down into the reentrant and check the code...I let this other fellow do the honors and it wasn't out control but a control for another course....but we asked those punching the control what the grid reference was and we were able to surmise that we were on the right track to our control but just had not gone far enough...

Eventually we located the tarn and control by following our bearing but had lost about 10 minutes in the process....if I had to do it all over again I should have gone with my first route plan and realized that the course planners would likely not put teams in jeopardy with an obvious route choice...but thats 20/20 hindsight....

The next route was a straight line route going up and over the summit of Lingmoor Fell to a ruin on the other side but also required that we find a gate near the summit so that we could cross over the wall running the length of the ridge legally (the code in the hills and rule in the event is that you could only cross the rock walls and fences located all over the fells at a gate crossing...crossing a wall or fence was a no-no...and course planners try to avoid routes that would tempt people)...

We began our last climb up of the day from the tarn aiming to cross the summit via the gate near the top and go straight line down the other side to a ruin and the control location...I knew this was our last navigation challenge of the event because the last control was at a gate on a path and then we had the finish...

we climbed steady as I kept us on the bearing over the undulating ground and we eventually hit the summit ridge wall and guessed right by heading to the right to locate the gate crossing...

Now on the down slope the ruin eventually came into view and we clelebrated knowing we had all the tough stuff behind us....Kari jogged down to the ruin as I followed carefully on tired leags and tweaked knee...





now all we had to do was follow a path to a gate for the last control and continue downhill to the finish where we started yesterday morning....

we were with 2 or 3 teams as we decided it was time to spend the rest of our energy with a downhill jog to the gate and last control and was happy to see that they had ribboned the last section to the finish to bring all teams down a trail...I could let go of the navigation and just enjoy the last minutes of our event and our time in the Fells....a great sense of satisfaction and emotion washed over me on the homestretch run as I felt so grateful to have done such a fantastic event with Kari, my wife....



I had to remind Kari to slow down as I could not keep up with her and we finished one of the more memorable endurance events I have ever done...





At the finish the volunteer insisted he take my mini cam and recreate the finish with both of us in the shot and we happily obliged...




A Great Two days in the Fells of the Lake District...

left work, drove to Elm Creek, dressed, did trail in 1:23:02 (15:45 beginner loop, 1:07:16 for intermediate loop) dressed, droveback to work in just over two hours and ten minutes.......that's efficient

Adventure runs on the front page of skinnyski.com...

http://skinnyski.com/training/display.asp?Id=23452

C • excellent. 3

bike over to Wirth for a couple of North loops...taking it pretty easy due to my sprint tri on sunday but I had a pretty good day trying to flow smooth down the trail so my lap times were decent.... 21:15/20:57 laps....

Probably the last swim training of the year...

my rule every year is I need 10 pool session sot be ready to race decent in a triathlon...today's session was #10 (with one additional open water training session) and my last swim tri of the year is Sunday...

my goal: swim 5-200's sub 3:10 with 2:00 rest....

3:06/4:01 (flubbed up and swam 250??)/3:07/3:10/3:06

not counting #2 where I went brain dead and swam a 250 I just missed my goal by not swimming under 3:10 on the 4th repeat...

2:00 rest

150 easy cool down...3:22

easy run on the east cedar trails...

Kari and I hit the Rock Lake single track on the way home...very slow and easy 5 mile loop...a a great way to end a fun trip on the way back to grandma's house.....

Intense!!!

that ws the one word we could come up with the course of the Wolfman Triathlon in Langlade Wisconsin....3 mile whitewater paddle, 13 mile mt bike, 3.5 mile trail run....

Kari and I are always on the look out for events that are unique adventure and gives you some stories after it is all done....and dont be fooled by the shorter distance...Kari and I agreed this event has one of the more rugged/harder adventure courses that we have come across....and it demands unique skill and concentration as each leg offers a technical component unmatched in other events we have done...

I have had my eye on this event since living in Stevens Point Wi when they began it 17 years ago but with my concentration on road sprint triathlons I never managed to go do it....but as they years wore on and the attendance and reputation grew I put it in our plans for 2011...it sells out in a month but we got signed up and managed to reserve a cabin at the resort that puts it on (Bear Paw) making it a perfect get away for Kari and I......

Kari and I signed up for the Tadem mixed division where we would do the paddle together and then split up to do the bike and run (just like the tri loppet) but the times are combined for a "team score"...looking at results the last few years I figured we might have a chance for a podium spot in this division which gave us something to shoot for....and add some interest to the game....

The vibe of the race was interesting...lots of return customers and an almost club/cult following for this event where many people focus on this event as their "event of the year" and everyone seemed to know each other, no wonder it sells out fast with a cap of 300 sign ups.....and it had a very competitive field... after doing the event I understood why...this is not a fun runners course.....from the whitewater, to the tech sections of the mt bike and run it demanded some skill to negotiate....nothing to tough or terrible if you were intermediate but each leg rewarded those that "knew what they were doing..." just having a big engine would not suffice if you did not have some skill that each section demanded....



first up...the white water paddle...Kari and I rented a plastic canoe from the U of M that could bounce off the rocks and I decided not to use my cabon fiber paddle becuase it would likely get shredded....

The white water section was a boulder strewn obstacle course of 3 rapid sections bracketed by some flat water at the start and end of the section...figuring we should do pretty well after the paddle the day before we started the section "hit and switching" and moving pretty good...we were in race mode and picking our line pretty well with me using my self taught whitewater skills learned the day before....unfortunately we were a little to frantic and took one line that almost flipped our canoe and let a bit of water in...after calming down a bit we were moving pretty well but the one thing we did not count on was trying to get around slower competitors when their was limited routes between the rocks....

we got hung up a couple of times in the low water but luckily a quick "jump out" by me got us dislodged an on our way...we probably lost 1:30 or so due to our misadventures that might have been avoidable but still manage to go about 1:30 faster than the day before....

time includes the portage and transition times...

more later...

we were in 3rd out of 10 teams in our division out of the paddle and on to the bike...we both wore running trail shoes so our tranisition was lightening fast and I was out of T1 just in front of Kari....

the first part of the bike was on a paved road but little did I know what was in store...a common theme in this race?...each legs starts out easy and you think "this is easy...no problem" but as each leg wore on the course got more difficult...the paddle started out with flat water and after 3/4 of a mile you hit the boulder field....on the bike I was biking hard on the road humming along in by my best close hand aero crouch as we motored down the road before turning on a 2 track forest road....

perhaps I have more experience in triathlons letting it all hang out on the road bike but I left Kari and when I peeked I could not see her....now we were on 2 track and it was still blazing fast but I missed a good line in a sand pit and who creeps up on me?...my lovely wife who is proving to be more one with the dirt...another girl passes at Kari's speed but we then turn into the single track and the girls is a victim of a lack of single track skill and Kari and I leave her behind....

...now on single track the trial is a combination of close boulders, rocky, rooty and short steep hill...I have never done a trail this technical at redline and it is beating the hell out of me and my bike as I try to keep the effort pegged...similar to the rock lake trail with a few more steep hills.....roots and rocks keep our speed down but our effort up as I clunk along with some dabs here and there and have to push a few uphill tricky areas...the hills where like those found at Hillside in Elk River...

....Kari is doing a bit better on the single track but I catch her on the 2 track sections that allow more passing....with all kind of abilities on the tech trails the place is littered with people on the side, pushing and going a bit slower....here and there Kari and I both have to dab due to slower people but its all a part of the game....I was a bit annoyed when a guy forced me off the trail to a stop because he was trying to remount in the middle of the trail when he was 5 yards from a 2 track section where he could have easily remounted without being in the way (and I called out "trail" to let hime know I was coming up on him ... Kari get out of sight but endo's when she pressures her front brake a bit to much and we are all back together again working our way through the single track...and hammering the two track that comes and goes....

...my quads are getting hammered and I finally do two up hills that I dont think I can ride but barely make it to the top with an audible grunt that really put me under as my HR goes to 177 on the bike...yikes!, this hurts....I try to recover and we are finally on the final two track section heading to the river crossings as lactic acid floods my legs....Kari and I are yelling encouragement back and forth and I dump it on a muddy 2 track section like a chump...I yell "I am ok keep moving!"...as she flys by...

river crossings?..you bet....3 of them right in a row in the space of 100 yards at the end of the bike...I shoulder the bike and move as quick as I can on trashed legs.....and after all is said and done Kari ends up finishing the bike :36 in front of me.....we are in 4th place in our division after the bike....

there is no transition time...

we jump off our bikes and only pause to unbuckle the helmet as we take off on a dead run in a field heading for a gravel road...

I see Kari ahead about 200 yards up the road knowing she will pull away now as she is faster than me these days....

once again the legs starts easy with a gravel road but after a mile we venture on to a trail that desolves into a rooty rocky sigle track that parallels the river...I keep my effort up as best I can but I now have to concentrate hard to keep from stumbling...and intersting feature is the constant ribbons that mark the way on the bike and run...and they are needed as the trail is really many trails that take different lines but ultimately come back together...and there are small sections with micro route choices on how to weave throught the rocks, boulders, roots and trees....we also hurdle countless trees some big, some small...

my head hurts from concentrating and the trails gets tougher with some steep up and down that beat me down to a fast hike as I am running in the 170's on the HR as I weave my way through some tricky areas....I break the tape and learn that Kari put 4 minutes on me on the run...good for her and good for our team but when out times are combined we come up short with a 4th place just 3 minutes behind the combined time of the 3rd place team out of 10 finishing mixed teams....if I could have matched Kari's time we would have been on the podium......of course this always leads to thoughts like "if we had not had gotten hung up on that boulder in the white water...if I had not been stopped by that guy on the trail...if I had not crashed on the bike".......but with a HR avg of 162 for the entire event I did all I could have done on that front...My body was hammered, especially my quads....Kari just need a partner that was a bit faster...


a fantastic event with a tough course...this isnt the tri loppet....I might want to do again if the memory of the pain fades a bit....go back and tri to do it a bit cleaner...but then again...ignorance is bliss...

portage canoe to start...

Off to Langlade Wisconsin after dropping Syd the Kid with G'ma near Superior.....thats a lot of driving (a total of 8.5 hours) to seek out some "couple time" and hunt up our latest adventure...the Wolfman Triathlon...a 3 mile white water paddle, 13 mile montain bike and 3.5 mile rugged trail run....

our plan?...get to the race site and paddle the race section to figure out the boulder strewn whitewater section class II rapid sections and then see if we can check out the difficult single track section of the bike....the latter did not happen...

...you know all those plans to do just a bit of whitewater paddling before the event just to get some basic technique? well, with a toddler it just never happen..despite having the Brule near by g'ma...a perfect river to prepare, we never got it done....the only paddling we had done this year was at the AR tune up in the inflatables kayaks...oh well, its a common story..

we pulled up and pulled an Ian with a bike shuttle...and despite no experience or training did the section in 37:07 a time that I knew was pretty decent from looking at last years results (the fastest tadem canoe time was...and I figured out a few things in the process....

portage canoe up to bikes....

bike back to car....canoe shuttle...

easy ride over to wirth via east cedar and did a couple loops before returning...saving it for the wolfman triathlon on saturday.......3 miles whitewater canoe, 13 mile mt bike, 3.5 mile trail run with Kari.........

unlogged walks for 1 hour and 1.5 hours this weekend with Kari and Syd..

just trying to sharpen up before next weekends adventure triathlon.....19:09 and 18:02...Kari and I parked at the playground across from the Memory care and took turns at Wirth while the other played with Syd....

Kari knocked out a couple fast laps and I tried to stay smooth and go at it with some effort...I think the 18:02 was a PR for this course configuration....

over to Wirth and 2 N. loops in 21:21 and 20:16...went fairly easy...

easy run with Kari and Syd in the stroller.......

bike up to Uptown for ice cream with Kari and Syd in tow.....decent effort.....

Hopkins loop with Syd in tow....stop at playground mid ride......pushed along pretty good.........

8x50 w/ :20 rest

:42/:43/43/:44/:43/:44/:44/:43

2:30 rest

4x100 w/:45 rest

1:28/1:29/1:30/1:31

2:30

2x200 w/1:30 rest

3:06/3:08

100 cool down 2:52

Back up the Greenway with a 7:30 warm up and then 2:30 on and 2:30 off x 8.....