Sweetwater Elementary 5K

I ran in the 3rd Annual Sweetwater Elementary 5K this past weekend and had a great time. I came in 2nd overall with a time of 20:11. The course was a bit long at 3.18 miles but they are never exact and everyone ran the same course so it was fine.

I am ready for the first triathlon of my season next Sunday. It is an olympic distance with a lake swim. I am very anxious to see how much I have improved over last year. I have put in a lot of work and my run times reflect that. My slowest 5K this year has been a 20:40 and all my others have been under 20:30 and a PR race of 19:39. I have built a decent bike base for the first time ever as well so I look forward to a good race this weekend.

Next month is Daytona Frogman and St. Anthony's is 2 weeks after that. I am looking at a busy race season and look forward to racing well and staying injury free.

I will post results with race reports as time permits.

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IT Band Problems and Triathlon Training **UPDATED**

1/13/2011

It has been a few months since my IT Band issues surfaced and I'm glad to report I think I'm on the better side of things now. I have been visiting the chiropractor once a week and doing more stretching than I thought was humanly possible. I have been back to running for the past 8 weeks, though at distances that range from only 2-5 miles at this point. I have been running 4-6 days a week at a more conservative pace and it has helped me greatly with my running form.

I now have a new 5K PR of 20:31 (not that it's that fast, but an improvement) and feel that in the next couple races, I will break the 20 min. mark. I am amazed that training at a slower pace but training every day has been so beneficial to me. It has greatly improved my form and I do most of my runs off the bike so I am getting more and more confident in my run for triathlon season. I have a couple olympic races that I have planned with St. Anthony's being the biggest. The other is a local race here in Daytona Beach, the Daytona Frogman. Frogman is 2 weeks before St. Anthony's so it will give me a good idea of what to expect at St. Anthony's.

I will update more often as my training progresses through the spring.


10/22/2010

Well I finally got my Plantar Fasciitis problems in check and now I'm having a minor (so far) problem with It Band on the other side. I was planning on my first full marathon next month and was up to 17 miles for my long run. I made the mistake of doing a hard speed workout with just one recovery day and I felt the pain near the end of the intervals. It was very slight so I actually forgot about it and tried to do an easy run the next day. Two miles into it and the pain was very noticeable. I walked home and iced it right away.

I went to see the chiropractor on Tuesday and she did some stretching and Graston and found some painful trigger points in my piriformis. I had a feeling it was something originating in my hip area because it had been a bit tender the last couple weeks. I have been stretching 2-3 times a day and icing as well. In the evenings, I do 30 minutes of yoga to really stretch things out. I have scrapped the full marathon as this week would be my 20 mile run and I am not willing to risk a worse injury that would put me out of my tri training for next season.

I will probably do the half marathon though, as I feel fit enough to cut my mileage back a bit before then and still be able to PR (I hope). I will try an easy run this weekend and probably get back on the bike. I want to start building my bike base back up as I have been focused purely on my run the last couple months.

I'm starting to plan out my race season next year. St. Anthony's will be on the list again. I have raced, if you can call it that, the last two years and two horrific races. I WILL redeem myself this year. I have a local olympic distance two weeks before St. Anthony's so I should have a good gauge at where I stand. I am focusing on St. Anthony's as my main early season race. The summer will be full of sprints so I plan to have a busy season.

I have to improve my swim this year. I slack every year and every year it costs me placings. When I'm racing my friends that are even on the bike and run but get a couple minutes on me during the swim,I have to hear it from them for the rest of the year. Friends suck sometimes. I'll keep things updated as I progress through the next few weeks.

Daytona Frogman Race Report

I started my weekend on Friday feeling great and ready for my race on Sunday. I was very excited to see where my fitness level was because I have been traing hard and I feel pretty strong. When my wife called me Friday afternoon and said she felt horrible, I was a little concerned (of course for her) that I may pick up some of it before the race. She was sick all night and I took care of the girls, 6 and 14 months. The youngest was the first one to come down with the sickness. I did my best to wash my hands obsessively but something must have gotten through. I started to feel the yuck at 2 a.m. When Saturday morning came around, I was down for the count. I spent all day Saturday feeling horrible. When I weighed myself Friday night I was 193. When I woke up Sunday morning, I still felt sick. I weighed in at 186. I was down 7 lbs from Friday night. Not good. I just tried to eat some toast with peanut butter and drank some water.

This race was to benefit the families of retired and fallen Navy Seals, so the race was started by the Seal parachute team dropping onto the beach right in front of us. Pretty awesome sight and gave a huge shot of adrenaline.

We got lined up on the beach for the start and were a bit delayed while they tried to get the buoys to stay set. They finally started the race and we were off. I felt good getting through the surf and was on my way. I fell behind the lead pack and was fine with that. I just wanted to keep an easy pace to see how my stomach was going to feel. I was doing okay. Water was rough and was tough to sight at times. I was between the lead group and the rest of the men, so no drafting for me. I ended up coming out at 16:42. The course was obviously shortened due to the times that were put up. It was probably more of 1200 yd course. As soon as I hit the beach and started my run to transition, I knew I was going to have a long day. My stomach hurt right away as soon as I started to jog. No problems with transition. Wetsuit off easily and helmet on.

Shoes were on the bike and no problems mounting the bike. It was about 1/4 mile when I strapped in to my shoes, no problems. I did not practice transitions as planned due to being violently ill on Friday and Saturday. It worked out okay. I dropped my chain going over the bridge. My fault, I waited too long to gear down. I put it back on mid bridge and still got over it rather quickly. I Took it easy with the headwinds and tried to reserve my energy for the tailwind portions. Started too lose my steam about half way through the ride due to my stomach funk. I ended up with a bike split of 1:10:01 (21.3 mph) so not too bad after all.

The run felt horrible from start to finish. I stopped sweating at mile 2 and got the goose bumps. Not good. I was intent on finishing, so I slogged through the miles. Every time I started to run, my stomach knotted up and was very painful. I ended walking probably 3 miles of the 10K. I was so disappointed because my run is so much improved. My last open 10K was 44 and change so obviously, I was not happy with an 1:01 10K. I watched the people pass me by on the run that I have beat all winter in the run races and I felt worse with each one. I finally got to the finish line and kept running straight to the bathroom. 10 minutes later I emerged to see my beautiful wife and 2 daughters waiting for me. My oldest said, "Great job Daddy. You finished". That brought a smile to my face for the first time all day.

I am glad I finished the race even though it was probably not the smartest thing to do. I spent the rest of the day in bed and in the bathroom. Good times. After beating myself for a little bit, I focused on the facts that were positive. I had a good swim, and decent bike even though I felt horrible. Transition times were fairly good and I got through them rather quickly. I will take these positives and prepare for St. Anthony's next month. If nothing else, this will keep the fire going to continue training harder for St. Anthony's next month and Florida 70.3 in May. I am taking today off, and getting back into training tomorrow.

Thanks for following.