Brian's Next Blog Attempttag:www.gunnbr.org,2007-06-06:/blog//32008-12-13T02:38:48ZMy random thoughts and training information.Movable Type Publishing Platform 4.01Coronado Looptag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.342008-12-13T02:22:39Z2008-12-13T02:38:48ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog But, my time off has allowed me to discover something interesting. Today Robin and I did the Coronado bike loop. This is a route I used to do with the HIT team that takes you from downtown to Coronado where you then take the ferry back to downtown. It's a generally nice route that takes you on everything from major streets to seemingly secret bike paths. Here's the route we took:
(Note that I turned off the GPS while we were on the ferry, so it looks on the map like a straight line. Had I realized what we were about to do, I probably would have left it on.)
The cool thing I discovered today is that the 2:30 ferry leaving from Coronado doesn't go directly to downtown. Instead it makes a detour to pick up people from the North Island military base. I've seen the aircraft carriers from across the bay while dining at Fish Market, but I'd certainly never been this close to them. The whole process is pretty amazing because military ships move the water barricades out of the way for the ferry to come in. Once inside the barricades, we traveled directly beside an active aircraft carrier and got to see everything going on. Then after we exit, the military ships again put the barricades back in place.
This route is fun in general if you haven't done it before, but if you happen to get on the ferry that stops at North Island, you're in for an even better treat! :) Lemme know if you want me to be your guide for this route sometime!
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Still chillintag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.332008-10-24T18:31:16Z2008-10-24T18:46:11ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
way into the off-season right now. I know, I haven't blogged about Longhorn yet. I promise--that is coming, but right now I'm spending all my nights and weekends doing things that I didn't get to do while in the midst of training. I'm spending more time at the office (gotta save up money and get back in my boss' good graces), hanging out with friends, getting things taken care of around the house, and just vegging alone at home. I know I haven't gotten to hang out with everyone I'd like to because somehow I'm still busy all the time, even without the training. I don't remember how I managed things with all the training thrown in.
I did have a nice fun ride with Katie last weekend. It was great to be back on the bike just for the fun of it and to really enjoy the day. This weekend I'm doing an even shorter ride so I can go to the ren faire in the afternoon. Kinda geeky, but all good fun once in a while. :)
So I apologize for not writing about Longhorn yet, but the off-season has hit me hard and I haven't recovered yet. :) I'll be back sooner or later though. ]]>
Nation's Tri Race Reporttag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.322008-09-25T05:36:11Z2008-09-25T16:35:46ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog While the weather was great for most of our trip, this was not the case on race day. The remnants of Hurricane Ike just happened to pass through DC the day of our race. According to a sign we saw on the way back after the race, the temperature was 99 degrees with what I'm sure was 100% humidity. It was HORRIBLE. We got to transition at around 5:30 in the morning and 15 minutes later I texted Ryan (who was still up partying after his race the day before):
It's quarter to 6. The sun is not up. I am not yet working out. I am sweating from the heat/humidity. :(
So I was worried I was in for a rough day. I got transition setup pretty quickly, went on a warmup run, then met the team for our pre-race picture and final coach's speech.
I then went back to transition, grabbed my swim gear and headed to the bathroom. As usual, the line was HUGE and my wave start was fairly early, so I didn't think I'd be able to make it to the portapotty and still make it to my wave start. At my last two races I learned how to pee in my wetsuit during the swim warmup. Unfortunately here, we got corraled in a pen and were only allowed in the water just before our wave start. Based on past experience, I knew I wouldn't be able to relax enough to go in those precious few moments between my entry in the water and the starting gun, so I decided drastic measures were necessary. I decided to put on my wetsuit and practice peeing in it outside of the water. This turned out to be fairly easy to do, though while I was standing there with urine slowly dripping out onto my foot, a guy came up to me on the other side of the fence and asked me to move so he could jump over. I let him in and briefly considered flinging a little on him, but decided it would be best not to anger my competition so early in the race.
As I stood waiting, I suddenly heard the most screeching, horrific rendition of the nation anthem that I've ever heard. Only later did I learn that it was being played on an electric violin by a guy in a wetsuit who then jumped in the water and did the race. I thought that was pretty cool once I found out what it was! I'm just glad I don't have to listen to it again.
Finally the race started and off I went. We were supposed to swim towards under the second arch of the nearest bridge. Somehow I got off course and ended up swimming towards the first arch. I eventually realized it and corrected, but not until I was pretty close to it. Having goggles that I couldn't really see out of didn't help me sight properly. The warm was a pretty warm 77 degrees--just one degree short of being a non-wetsuit legal race. As I was really worrying about overheating on the swim, so I followed some advice I got and took of my cap. During the swim, I also stopped a few times to get fresh cooler water in my wetsuit. As I came in, I got off course a few more times and at one point had to totally stop and take off my goggles to see where I was going. I know--I need new goggles. It's not like they are all scratched up or anything, it's just that they are so rough inside that no amount of defogger can prevent them from becoming nearly opaque. Despite all this, I did manage to finish the swim in 31 minutes, which was my swim PR by 2 minutes. (Okay--now I just noticed my official time was 33:08, which is still a PR, but only by 29 seconds.)
Thanks to the well labeled transition area, I found my bike with no problem and managed to do something I'd never practiced before--I did a shot of Hammer Gel while in transition. I made it out on the course without a problem. The bike course was really nice and probably 90% shaded. I was still worried about overheating, so I didn't push too hard, but I never felt the heat at all during the bike. About 20 minutes into the bike, right as some guy was passing me, something went wacky. All the sudden my bike bottle went flying and there was the noise of something caught in my spokes. I have no idea what happened--I thought at the time I had gotten a branch stuck in my spokes. I realized this was a critical situation that needed to be fixed, so I pulled over to check the problem. As it turns out, my speed sensor had gotten into my spokes and gotten knocked off. The wire that used to go up the arm of the speed sensor was still there and getting whapped around by the spokes. After fixing this, I waited for a break in the stream of competitors and turned around to go back for my water bottle. (Note that I didn't entirely do this just to avoid a littering penalty--there was no bottle exchange on the course, so if I didn't have this bottle, I knew I would be in trouble.) The rest of the ride was uneventful. I didn't feel like I pushed too hard and I got in another couple of Hammer Gels.
For some reason, I was a little obsessed with beating one of the girls on our PacGrove team who had done that race in 2:51. This was a good 8 minutes faster than my PR, but I was hoping that my improvements on the swim and my experience having really good runs on my last 2 races would allow me a chance. My goal was to start the run at 2:00, giving me 51 minutes to complete the 10K, well within my capabilities if I pushed. I was amazed to check my watch and bike in and find that I'd just done a PR on the bike too! I started the run at 1:50, giving me a full hour so I could take it easy on the run and easily beat Jen. I was feeling confident and as coach rode up a quarter mile into my run, I told him my plan and how happy I was I could take it easy on the run. He also told me that John was only a quarter mile in front of me, so I thought I had a chance of beating him, even though I knew he was faster on the run. Then I finished my first mile in 8:38, which was close to my race pace and would have given me a finishing time of 53:38 (not that I could do such calculations in my head at the time, but I knew that pace would meet my goal pretty easily). I took it a little slower the next mile, figuring I would save up for the last couple of miles. I did this mile in 9:39. Slower, yes, but I figured that was alright cause I would pick it up at the end.
Then, disaster struck. All the sudden, I became really hot and really tired. Not only tired in that my legs didn't want to keep moving and were even developing cramps, but tired in that all I could think about was literally laying down in the grass and taking a nap. (I should note that I didn't sleep AT ALL the night before and didn't sleep very well the night before either.) After this, I was done. I couldn't get myself back in the mental state to push through and make it happen. I filled my hat with ice at the second aid station, but that actually seemed to hurt me and I slowed down more. Eventually around mile 2.5, I started to walk. I was getting some cramps around the bottom of my ribs, but I don't know if I was REALLY getting cramps or if I was just trying to find any reason I could to allow myself to walk. For the next few miles, I did a run/walk (or perhaps a walk/run) and finished those miles in 11:06, 12:56, and 12:48. Somewhere along there, coach rode up right in the middle of a walk and asked what was going on. Only later did I find out he then rode up to everyone else and told them I was cramping and that they had a chance to beat me. :P
When I hit the mile 5 marker, I knew I had 14 minutes left in order to beat my PR and I knew at my current pace, that was going to be really close, so I knew I had to pick it up. I ran that whole mile, finishing it in 10:09. I think this picture is from that final mile and despite my thumbs up, I was NOT feeling good here. I figured I had 4 more minutes to finish the last 0.2 miles, which was well within my capability. Unfortunately as I saw 6.2 tick by on my GPS, I saw the finish and realized I was still quite a ways off, so I had to really push to try to make my PR and got my heartrate up to 92%. I crossed the line in 2:59:11, which did give me a PR, but only by 18 seconds. Not the 9 minutes I was hoping for nor the 15 minutes I thought I could do at the start of the run, but a PR nonetheless.
I knew my mom and Narda were around somewhere, so I thought about looking for them, but at this point I felt so bad that I found the nearest shaded area, sat down, and didn't move for the next 45 minutes. Several times sitting there, I poured water on my head to cool down. I really wanted some of the sports drink they were giving away, but couldn't get up to get any. I thought about begging someone to bring me some, but in the end, I just sat there.
Eventually I got up, got some more water and sports drink and wandered over to the food tent where they had the most amazing spectacle I'd ever seen. HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of boxes of Papa John's Pizzas!! People were walking around carrying full boxes and there seemed to be a never-ending supply! I grabbed some pizza, then thought an iced coffee sounded great in lieu of my normal chocolate milk. On my way there, I sat in some shade to finish my pizza and ended up sitting next to Briggs from Breakaway Training, who is a friend of Katie's she told me to be on the lookout for. I talked with him for a while, got my ice coffee, and then FINALLY found my mom.
Eventually everyone finished. We did our normal run the last person in, then got in the street and took our own team finishing photo: Overall, a great race. I actually really liked the course, and though I felt disappointed I had missed my goal time by so much, I was still really happy I had set 3 new PRs on the course.
(Okay--that entry took went pretty quick, but still took well over an hour and ended up being much longer than I'd hoped. If you're reading this message, then I haven't yet gone back to edit this to make it shorter, so you just got stuck reading the obscenely long version.)
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Fall is here!!tag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.312008-09-22T19:42:21Z2008-09-22T19:59:28ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog I love fall! Here are some of the reasons why:
The weather starts to cool down, which allows me to start wearing my cooler weather clothes.
The cooler weather also allows me to start sleeping more comfortably again.
Running at Torrey Pines in the cool morning with Coach Ginger (Mentor Ginger at the time I think) was where I first learned to love to run. I'm looking forward to that again!
It's soup eating season again!
It's chili eating season again!
It's tea drinking season again!
I get to use the hot tub without thinking that it's too hot out to be doing so.
I love the smell of the air as the seasons change.
I love the holidays! (Strangely Halloween even though I used to absolutely hate it.)
I love the smells that come out around this season like cinnamon or pumpkin spice.
Everyone has drinks like pumpkin spice and mint (two different drinks--not a "pumpkin spice mint" drink).
I love the colors of the leaves (even if we don't get to see them as much out here--at least I can decorate with them)
I get to watch football again!
I get to make my yummy warm appetizers for watching football games!
I can make my warm breakfasts like steel cut oats cooked overnight in the crock pot.
The rain comes back to San Diego, so I get to sleep in on the occasional rainy Saturday morning.
It's great weather for cuddling on the couch (ugh--I really miss that!)
Probably many more reasons that I'll remember later (feel free to reply with your own!).
To celebrate, I had a mug of blueberry green tea with my breakfast this morning. :)
And now (soon) back to your regularly scheduled blog....
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Midnight Bike Ridetag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.292008-09-19T18:16:38Z2008-09-20T05:23:06ZInstead of trying to post a really long entry about my experience in DC for the Nation's Tri, I'm gonna split it into a bunch of smaller stories.As (almost) always, I waited until the morning of my flight to do...Brian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
really long entry about my experience in DC for the Nation's Tri, I'm gonna split it into a bunch of smaller stories.
As (almost) always, I waited until the morning of my flight to do my packing. Of course, that's the reason why I picked an afternoon flight--so I wouldn't be rushed to pack quickly in the morning. Despite the somewhat scary date (September 11th), the flight went great and John even brought a nice warm cookie back from first class for me. (YUM!!) Some people recommended "Super Shuttle" to me, but fortunately John was familiar with them and had arranged for a car service once we arrived. Iris wasn't so fortunate and spent an hour and a half on the "Super Shuttle" the day before. We had our share "fun" with our driver too though. Despite the fact that he kept using English words, he had absolutely no grasp of the language. I asked him three times in different ways "How long will it take to get to the hotel?" and never did get an answer out of him. Once we got to downtown DC, a bunch of streets were closed for resurfacing and the guy couldn't figure out how to navigate. In the end, he followed a paving truck onto a street where the top had been removed AND THEN STOPPED FOR THE STOPLIGHT! So we're sitting there somewhere that we clearly shouldn't have been and 2 huge dump trucks are waiting for him to get out of the way and he just stopped. All 3 of the other adults in the car start screaming at him to go, but he won't. To recap, the street is BLOCKED, so by running this red light, he's in absolutely no danger of getting in an accident (well--unless some other driver who is as easily confused comes plowing through the cones). We finally get through the light and the driver starts babbling about how he couldn't run the light because he can't get in trouble with the police again. I didn't even try to get him to elaborate on that. We did make it to the hotel safely, though I'm not sure if John tipped the guy after all this insanity.
I met up with everyone else already there (Iris, Coach, and John C.) and grabbed a quick meal at the hotel bar. Iris told us that she and Sarah were doing a midnight bike ride around DC. This sounded quite foolish to me, but after I thought about it for a while, I realized this sounded like an incredible adventure that I just had to go on. My instincts were correct--the bike ride was incredible!! There was almost no traffic, so we rode in the middle of the street by all the national landmarks. Everything of interest was nicely lit and it was just amazing to see everything in person that I've only seen in the movies. One of the first things we did was ride to the Capitol:
I really wish I had gotten a picture of the makeshift camera stand. Iris and I leaned our bikes into each other, then I carefully perched my camera on one of the seats and used the camera's timer. Right outside the lawn is the Capitol Reflection Pool and as I we rode past that, I made many comments about how that would be a great place to get a picture of me skinny dipping. I had heard stories about such activities at PacGrove with the rest of the team already and was jealous that I missed out yet again. We decided that although there wasn't a great deal of visible security, I should probably wait until after the race in case I end up in jail for it. As it turned out, I was the last person in town, so after my mom left and I was ready to get freaky, there was no one left to take a picture. I certainly didn't want to hang around forever trying to get a shot setup by myself with the auto-timer.
After this, we rode on to the Washington Monument. Since we were there on September 11th, the circle of flags surrounding the monument were all at half mast. There was a nice steady wind, so the flags were blowing nicely:
We rode up to the base of the monument and spent a lot of time there. As we stood there quietly listening to the flapping of the flags, it began to gently rain on us. I knew static pictures couldn't capture the feeling of this place, so I shot some video:
We rode around a little longer, then returned to the hotel after 1 in the morning. Overall, this was a great first day of the trip!
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Water Qualitytag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.282008-09-18T16:13:02Z2008-09-18T16:56:28ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog Okay--it looks bad, although truthfully, once we got in the water, it was fine. Visibility was bad, but not the worst I've been in. And I was again reminded of how much I like swimming in fresh water. I even had my swim PR on this swim, even though I once again went off course and stopped a couple of times. But more on that in my full race report later....
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I'm back!!!!!tag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.272008-09-17T20:50:02Z2008-09-17T20:56:43ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
done with the sightseeing and walking around. I can't even tell you how great it was to see the Laguna Mountains on the flight back. YAY!!! ]]>
Overcommitedtag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.262008-09-08T23:05:16Z2008-09-08T23:48:11ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog I've known about this problem for a while and kept thinking it would resolve itself once the PG/NT season is over, but now that the final event is staring me in the face, I'm finally realizing that it just won't. Somehow I've managed to overcommit myself. This weekend I've got Nation's tri. In 2 weeks, Lighthouse Century, the week after, Longhorn half and 2 weeks after that is Pumpkinman. Those races alone aren't that big of a problem, but for final prep on Saturday, Laurie came to talk to us about the Lavaman season. She mentioned there that kickoff for Lavaman is November 8th. That means that 2 weeks after Pumpkinman, I'm back to the insanity that is mentoring (or at least, mentoring the way I always end up doing it).
This all seems like too much. I really feel like I should cut back on my races and spend at least a little of the remaining summer doing some other things that need to be done. I'd really like to get some things done around the house so it's more presentable and comfortable. I'd really like to get some training in with katie b and the Barney Butter team.
There are even a couple of events that I'm not all that excited about that I'd almost like to bail out of. But I feel like it's not about the event and more about how I've made commitments to go to these events with other people. I mean, I think these events would be fun and all, but I also feel like I need some time to myself to do things other than TNT events. (Don't worry Team Barney Butter--I'm not thinking of bailing out on Longhorn--that's the one race that I've actually been excited enough about to make all the preparations. The other two I haven't cared enough about to make hotel or travel plans yet.)
So what's the point of this entry? I don't have one. I may drop out of a couple of races. I may not. Maybe I'll just not do any training for the ones I am signed up for and use the time for other things. I don't know. Just putting this all out there. ]]>
Competitive much?tag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.252008-09-03T16:05:37Z2008-09-03T20:05:07ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog Last night we had our final track practice--a 1 mile time trial. I have mixed emotions about time trials. I like pushing myself hard to see what I can do, but I'm also scared to find out what my limits are. I think I'm also pretty scared of finding out that at my very best, I'm not as good as other people out there. (That should be obvious given that I'm not in the Olympics or anything, but still...)
As always, I was pretty nervous about it. When even thinking about a time trial, I feel a rush of adrenaline course through my body. I let that happen once as I was driving to the track, but then tried to relax and save myself for the run. Although I thought I was able to stay calm, I think I was still really stressed. I felt tired and had a headache. During my warmup, I felt like I was gonna puke from lunch (maybe I shouldn't have drank the extra hot sauce). (Sidenote--is that correct grammar? "shouldn't have dranken"? "shouldn't have drunken"? Mark--help me out here.)
But far too soon, the gun went off and it was time to run. If I remember correctly, I kept up with Neil for the first full lap then lost him half way through the second. Around then is where I started having this debate about myself about how competitive I am. Do I want to push harder to stay up with Neil? What if I can't? What if I try to keep pace with him and finally hit that wall where it's simply not possible for me to continue? What does that even look like? I've never pushed that hard before, so I don't know what it is. I must have this subconscious vision of my body totally giving out--me puking and crashing to the ground while everyone else gathers around in a circle laughing and saying "YOU SUCK!". I have no idea what would actually happen. I mean--intellectually I know that people are busy doing their own personal bests and no one will stop to say that I suck. True--I can still justify my fears by worrying that they'll think it, but I'm guessing they won't even do that. Physically I don't know what would really happen to stop me. I just have never tried that hard before to see what would happen. I always stop myself mentally first. I've certainly pushed myself beyond where I thought I could (Carlsbad Half and IB Triathlon are the races where I pushed through some mental barriers), but I've never pushed hard enough to hit the point where I simply could not continue.
(Oh--actually now I take that back--I did once--Tucson Century ride I push so hard (and drank so little) that I got massive cramps to the point where I couldn't stand while riding my bike at all. Hmmm... I'll have to think about this one more--certainly nothing critically bad happened to me because of this. Maybe I can use it as future motivation.)
Anyway--back to the TT. Neil kept quite a ways ahead of me. I just tried to hold my pace and was worried about blowing up too early. I heard Emily breathing down my neck the last lap and she finally passed me with probably 150 meters to go. I tried to get motivated to push harder, but somehow I just didn't have it last night. I still finished in 6:29, which was 1 second faster than my projected time and 18 seconds faster than at the beginning of the season. It does fall short of my PR of 6:15 though. Neil finished in 6:01 (WOW!!!!!) and Emily beat me by just a little with a 6:27.
Then this morning I was planning on an ocean swim. Liz called me shortly after I woke up and told me she wasn't coming. This was a perfect excuse for me to skip, especially since I didn't get as much sleep as I had wanted, but John told me there were a lot of people coming and that he needed my help. On the drive there, I remember thinking "I hope it's not just me and John cause I don't think I can keep up with him." Well--sure enough--I got there and it was just the two of us. I've been doing a lot of swimming lately and I feel like I've improved, but I spend 99% of my time swimming with people much slower than I am, so I don't really know how fast I am now.
So again, I had to make the decision--do I try to keep up with John or do I let him go and take it easy? I really didn't want to push it, again in part because I'm scared to fail and see how much faster John is, but I did. I stayed next to him at first and eventually dropped behind him to draft. We made it to the quarter mile in 7:42. After chatting for a couple of minutes, we continued on to the half, making that leg of the journey in 6:53. (I swear it's shorter to go from the quarter to the half than it is to go from shore to the quarter!) We hung out and chatted for right at 4 minutes at the half, deciding to come all the way back to shore without stopping. Once again I didn't feel like pushing it, so now I let John go on ahead. I kept a pretty good pace and made the half mile back in 13:17, even though I kept getting way off course. I think my right shoulder was getting tired, cause I kept pulling to the right really bad. Now, several hours later, I can really feel the workout in my shoulders! My total time, including just under 6 minutes of stops was 33:44. I'm actually very happy about that! My best Olympic distance swim time was 33:37. This was longer than race distance and I came very close to the same time, even with 6 minutes of stopping and without pushing it as much as I could have. I did have to push a little bit on the swim though and ended with a side ache.
So am I competitive? I just don't know. There are times where I push myself. Somehow Greg and I had that a lot last year. For some reason lately I've just been really scared to find out how much I can do, so I feel like I've lost that competitive edge. I'd like to get it back. I think. At least, I'd like to lose my mental blocks and let myself do the best I can whether it's because I'm competing against myself or just on my own. Guess I'll keep working on that... ]]>
This is an entrytag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.242008-08-29T17:24:10Z2008-08-29T17:37:44ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
certain people won't link to my blog because I don't update it often enough. So, once again, I'll try to attempt to update my blog more often. My problem with doing so is
1) I'm a perfectionist and want every post to be useful and interesting and contain all the relevant information about whatever I'm trying to say. This means that even the seemingly simplest entries take hours to create.
2) I'm ridiculously busy, so I don't have hours a day to write in here.
So we'll see--maybe I can compromise and find a way to get over my perfectionism and wanting create compelling material and just make quick posts more often. Certainly posting the way I do means that some interesting things get lost. I was all prepared to write a non-workout entry about how I'm in a total relationship funk and not interested at all in dating or anything. Then I spent so long trying to think of the hows and whys of that and how to phrase my post in an interesting way that now it's not so relevant anymore.
So alright Ann--here's a post. Will you please link me now? :)
(And I see that I started 2 paragraphs with the word "So", but in defiance of my perfectionism, I'm not gonna go back and change it!) ]]>
Morning swimtag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.212008-08-13T17:01:07Z2008-08-13T17:19:19ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
lot lately. I've been out swimming in the ocean 5 days a week. I usually take out the newbies and go slow, but still feel like all the practice has made me faster and more comfortable. In fact, on one swim last week, I didn't even think about breathing for a good 5 minutes in the water--it was totally subconscious!
But for today's swim, I decided to go out for my first morning swim. At 7:30, it certainly wasn't as early as those hardcore morning swimmers, but it was early for me. And at least I made it to my swim unlike some of my less fortunate friends (Katie!). :)
This morning was definitely a great time to go to the cove. Parking was no problem, the water was calm, and there were no lines at the showers. I was really looking forward to this swim with the faster people to see if all my base building swims would pay off in speed. I felt ready to go out with the fast swimmers and see if I could keep up. Alas, it was not to be. I couldn't even keep up with Ryan while drafting off him. It probably didn't help that I wasn't swimming very straight and kept getting out of his slipstream. Looks like I'll have to keep practicing. Of course, Ryan's out there swimming just as much as I am, so I need to find some way to get in extra speed training while he's not paying attention. :)
The highlight of the morning was seeing a bunch of bat rays. I saw around 6 in one group and then a couple more single ones in other places. I also swam over a couple large groups (but not large enough to be a school) of fish. It was certainly a great way to start the morning!
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Events lessons learned and The Gimp, The Slut, and the Klutztag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.202008-07-28T02:39:53Z2008-08-12T06:37:49ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog First up is Vineman Half. I didn't actually do this race, but I did learn several things:
Be prepared for every type of weather. This race was WAY colder than everyone expected.
Don't drive home the day of the race. I thought it would get me an extra day at work, but instead I slept all day and was really stressed about staying away all night to get home.
A double shot latte at 9 pm will keep me awake and alert enough to drive (kinda) all night, yet still allow me to sleep in the morning.
Not doing the race is the best way to participate in the event. :)
There were many good times had over the weekend, but the best story for sharing is the start of our trip home. We left Guerneville the day of the race at around 7:30. There's a nice
windy road leaving the town and I'd already driven it more often that
I'd wanted, due to the fact that T2 was several miles away along this very road. As I was
driving along, I was relishing the fact that this was the last time I'd
have to drive this stretch when suddenly Dana realized she had Sandra's ID.
So--we had to turn around and go back. Sandra did agree to meet us
half way, but it did mean more time on this stupid road.
As
we're driving back and forth through the twists and turns, Katie starts
to feel motion sick. This isn't helped by the fact that she ran out of
food and hasn't eaten in forever. While we cruise along, Katie tries
to sleep to keep herself from throwing up. Eventually her tummy starts
to feel bad so she unbuttons and unzips her pants to relieve some of
the pressure that's making her feel even worse.
Finally we make it to a Whole Foods just 10 minutes before they close. We walk in and I immediately head over to order a coffee. Dana, having just finished the race, is limping around the store looking for food, but eventually makes her way over to order a sandwich. Katie wanders around the store looking like someone who has just stepped off a 24 hour torture session of riding the world's most puke inducing rollercoaster. After getting my coffee, I head over to Dana and try to hand her an environmentally friendly reusable bag I'm carrying under my arm. To do this, though, I need to set my coffee down. Now picture one of the nice refrigerated sections at the grocery store. You know--the kind with the nice rounded glass front where they had the coleslaw and potato salad. Well apparently when I set my coffee down, I didn't entirely place it on the flat part on top, but rather on the rounded area, so as I'm handing the bag to Dana, my coffee starts to slide down. I notice this just in time to try to catch it and end up juggling it a bit before it turns upside down and douses the entire front of the case and quite a bit of myself in coffee. The workers are now all looking at us in disgust as one of them says "Guess I'll be cleaning that up."
So--I head off to the bathroom to rinse the coffee off myself and, once there, look in the mirror to see that my hair is an absolute mess. It's sticking straight up and is really quite frightening. But, I head back out, get another coffee, round up the girls and head out. Once we get to the car, Katie suddenly realizes that she spent the entire time walking around the the store with her pants unbuttoned and unzipped. So, we spent quite a while afterwards trying to figure out what the people in the store must have thought of us. We finally decided they thought we were a gimp, a slut, and a klutz. :)
In the end, I drove most of the way home, though Dana relived me for an hour so I could sleep through the grapevine. Eventually we made it back to Dana's at 5 am. Somehow even though Katie slept the whole time, she looked even worse than I did, while Dana, who mostly stayed up to keep my company looked totally fresh and alert: (Sorry girls--I just had to post that. :)
Then the next weekend I did Solana Beach Triathlon, which was my first sprint distance. From this I learned how to pee in a wetsuit. Yes--I finally did it. It took me 20 minutes standing in the water to relax enough to get it done, but it certainly helped me out once the race started. Once I got going, I was even able to pee while standing in the water talking to a friend. :) I also learned that I can finish in the top half of my age group and I reconfirmed that my run sucks, but that it's all mental. I did manage to race another guy the last 200 meters (and beat him), proving that I still had the energy to run harder--my problems on the run are all mental. That sprint also proved to be quite useful as I managed to beat Ryan by just 1 second, which I wouldn't have done had I not sprinted. :)
The best part of this race is that I got this photo that I absolutely love. I look like I'm working hard and it's a great action shot of me in front of the guy who I beat to the finish.
In the end, I really enjoyed this race and although I had originally planned to do IB sprint as a total fun race, riding a beach cruiser with an aero helmet, now I kinda want to do it for real just to try to improve on my Solana Beach time. Guess I'll see how I feel on race day...
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Not so much following the plan...tag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.192008-07-01T05:16:40Z2008-07-08T00:35:40ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
fantastic!
However, it was also the beginning of my pre-race plans totally unraveling. After the swim, I hung out with friends until insanely late, then I didn't sleep well that night at all. I got at most 4 hours of sleep, but probably more like 2-3. The next day I got up early to mentor for the TNT team. I cut my part of the workout WAY short, but then sat around in the sun for many hours, slowing getting sunburned and dehydrated. By the time I left the workout, I had to hurry to get down to SDI packet pickup in time. After I finished there, I ended up going to the OB street fair (which I had originally planned to not attend). Needless to say, this did not end up being the relaxing afternoon I had planned on. While there, I ran into Brad who bought me an Irish carbomb (Thanks Brad--even if it was the day before race day!) From there, I rushed to make the carb loading dinner I had planned and finally made it home for the first time that evening at around 10:00 and hadn't yet packed for the race. At this point, I was totally exhausted, but had to push through and get packed before going to bed. I finally made it to bed around 10:45 and managed to fall asleep pretty quickly, but with a 4:30 wakeup time, I wasn't able to sleep enough.
Race day, I wasn't feeling all that bad, but I was very tired. Everything went pretty smoothly as I setup my transition area. The only scary part is that I almost forgot to put on my timing chip. I'm really glad I noticed it on the ankle of the guy next to me. I'm gonna have to start practicing with that!
My swim went really well--I was trying to beat my 18:58 time from last year and I got out of the water at 17:13 according to my watch. That put me in a good mood! Then as I headed over to transition, I heard lots of people cheering for me. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure who all was there, but I heard my name a lot. THANK YOU EVERYONE! Knowing that you all were watching made me really hurry through transition and make it look good. :)
My bike also went really well. I passed quite a few people, but got passed by more people than I wanted. I wasn't really pushing as hard as I could have. My heartrate stayed around 81% and I didn't feel like pushing harder. I told myself at the time it was because I was saving myself for the run. I did manage to finish the bike in 53:51 according to my watch, which was 43 seconds than last year, so I was pretty happy about that too.
My plan was to really push until it hurt on the run, but once again, I couldn't get going like I wanted. I was planning to keep an 8:00 pace, but I did my first mile at 8:39 and went down from there. At this point, it was a totally mental game. I kept trying to push myself to go faster, but just didn't have the drive to do it. I kept coming up with all kinds of excuses:
I'm tired My back hurts (I had strained it a bit on Friday) I'm hungry (Didn't eat enough breakfast, then I didn't have any nutrition during the race at all) I'm hot This hurts
I did at least have enough drive left to keep myself running instead of walking. As people passed me, I tried to keep pace with them just like I did with Kim at Carlsbad half, but I just couldn't keep it up for long. The excuses kept getting to me. I did start to pass some people I knew though and once I passed them, I used that as motivation to keep going because I didn't want to pass someone I knew just to have them catch up with me again. (I won't embarrass said people by calling them out here, especially since I know how many people beat me! :)
Finally with a mile and a half to go, I remembered a video that Denner had just introduced me to:
(Ugh--I really need to figure out how to embed things with this software--I know my posts are way too text heavy as it is...)
So for the rest of the race, I just concentrated on "Just do it." I was able to pick up my pace for a while, but then I kept falling back. In the end all I was able to do was increase my heartrate and respiration rate without actually going faster. With half a mile to go, a guy I'd been leapfrogging caught up to me again and told me to keep pace with him. I was able to keep up with him on the way in.
Crossing the finish line, I saw that my finish time was 2:11:13 which was 3:18 faster than my time from last year. My run was 1:02 faster than last year. I have to say, this really disappointed me because I've been doing a LOT more running and I thought I'd be able to beat last year's run by at least 5 minutes and I was hoping by 7 minutes.
I was even more disappointed to check the results and find myself at 64th place out of 102 in my AG. Once again, I had failed to make even the top 50% in my age group. I did perk up a little when I realized I was only 6:13 off from the top half of my AG though.
I know that I have only myself to blame for not meeting my goals. I
didn't follow my pre-race plan at all and that really affected my
performance. Then again, as Ann said, it's okay to be a "social
triathlete" too. And I certainly did have fun with all my weekend
activities that kept me me from sleeping all weekend. Certainly I
don't look too upset after the finish as this picture shows.
But then again, I am competitive enough that failing to meet my goals really bugs me. Guess I'll try the plan again next time. I now have two goals for my next race:
1. Do a 50 minute 10K 2. Finish in the top half of my AG.
I'll let you know how that goes. :)
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Cove Swim Day!!tag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.182008-06-27T16:46:36Z2008-06-27T19:18:25ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
fantastic mood! Instead of my normal routine of staying up until midnight trying to get everything finished, I got off the computer last night around 10:15, got ready for bed, and then read for 20 minutes. Once I got into bed, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. And even better is that I managed to sleep later this morning. I've been waking up between 4 and 4:45 in the morning lately, but this morning I didn't wake up until 5:15. I laid in bed until 7:30 and I didn't think that I slept more, but I may have because it didn't at all feel like I was awake for 2 hours and I am in a really great mood now!
And for whatever reason, I am REALLY looking forward to the cove swim tonight. I have no idea why, but I'm just going with it.
But do you ever have those thoughts of "What if this is my last day on Earth?" That thought popped into my head today. I guess it's not an unexpected thought at all because today is the anniversary of the death of the brother of a good friend of mine, so I've been talking to her about that. If this does happen to be my last blog entry ever, know that I went doing my favorite workout--the Friday Cove swim and that I didn't regret a moment of it! (Well, unless I am killed in an accident on the way to the cove and then know that I'm really pissed at whoever ran into me and denied me my final cove swim!) :) ]]>
Following the plan?tag:www.gunnbr.org,2008:/blog//3.172008-06-26T14:35:50Z2008-06-26T20:10:39ZBrian G.http://gunnbr.org/blog
Sleep: NO Despite the fact that the weather has returned to comfortable sleeping weather and the fact that I've been very tired, I still haven't been sleeping well. I get to bed right around midnight every night and then have problems falling asleep with my mind racing about all the things I need to do and about my love life (or lack thereof). Then for some reason I wake up every morning between 4 and 4:45. Most mornings I can fall back asleep after an hour or so, but this morning, I had so much on my mind that I couldn't sleep and finally just got out of bed at 6:45. It's possible that I'd sleep more if I got to bed at a reasonable hour, but so far I haven't been able to force myself to get to bed earlier.
Taking it easy on my workouts and fully recovering physically: NO I'm sure the lack of sleep isn't helping my recovery, but neither is my continuing to workout. I thought I could still go to the gym on Monday and recover by the race, but my trainer had my do 50 pullups and I'm still sore from that this morning. I went to track on Tuesday and did that all out. I took it easy at swim last night, but I think that's still also contributing to my sore shoulders this morning. I did take today off from the gym though, so hopefully that will help. But, I'm not going to skip the Friday cove swim since this is the last time I'll get to do it this season because I'm doing PacGrove/Nation's Tri swims on Friday nights until September. (I will try to get out for an ocean swim on the weekends though.)
Preparing my mental game: NO I need to be totally pumped for this race and be focused on pushing until it hurts. Instead, I'm just getting annoyed at all the things this race is keeping me from doing and I'm really looking forward to it being over. Maybe I've lost that competitive edge. Maybe my priorities have changed so I just want to be more social than hardcore. Or maybe I just am not getting enough sleep to care about racing. I hope I can get in at least one race this year where I've got the mental game dialed in so I can give it my all.
