Ben’s Race Page

Bike 13.3 miles, 43:44
Trans 5:46
Run 2.20 miles, 19:48, 9:05 per mi

I did a short brick workout today, mostly to work some biking into my taper for the marathon. I also wanted to get Fritz some exercize by taking him for a short run.

No problems with the workout and everything felt good. I’ll be resting for the next couple of days and trying to eat healthy in preparation for the Marathon.

See the workout here.

Or 3.11 miles, 29:14, 9:23 per mile. That included a lot of stopping and slowing down for Fritz. It was pretty warm out and I think it was a little much for him. I’ll have to be a lot more careful in the future. I’m looking back at my run history and I may have tapered a little too much, meaning I don’t know if I have put on enough miles in the last few weeks. I guess we’ll see how the marathon goes. I hope I can keep up with Tyler.

Look for pictures from the Soldier Field 10 as I’m putting some up right now.

1:17:32, 7:46 pace

This is one of my favorite races. It looked like it was going to rain and be a crappy day, but the rain held off and it was a little cold to be standing around, but it was a perfect for running. Again, I wanted to take it easy and not run all out for this race. I was shooting for 8 minute miles and stayed pretty close. I felt much more comfortable than I did at the half marathon, so I’m happy with the pace.

The course was different this year and it allowed people to spread out more. The race was well organized and the finish in Soldier Field is always awesome. The post race food and drinks were great. My only complaint is that the water stations could have been longer or on both sides of the race. It was a little hard to get in and get water.

All in all, it was a great race. GPS data is here. Check the Results section for the full results.

3.5 miles, 24:23. The race was really crowded and it was even hard to get close to the starting line. It was also hot and humid as it always seems to be for this race. I ran faster than I wanted to, but that’s the competative side of me coming out. I was trying to take it easy in preparation of the marathon coming up. Anyway, I felt comfortable and it should be okay.

I don’t have official results for this race because you report your results to your company and it is all on the honor system. No chip timing for this race. I got my time off of my nike+ which was totally inaccurate. It seems that anything under a 7:45 pace and I need to recalibrate it.

Dan and I biked in to work yesterday and it really makes a difference when you’re not fighting the wind most of the way. The pace was pretty high for this ride, but stoplights and stop signs make it really hard to go any faster. See the ride here.

I’m feeling much better about my cycling now, but I really need to start putting things togeter and get into a training program for the 1/2 Ironman I plan on doing this year. I will definitely buckle down after the Marathon on June 2.

I’ve got the Chase Corporate Challenge tonight and the Soldier Field 10 mile Saturday.

So, I biked home today and what should have been a 26 mile ride turned into 32. I was trying to find some other north-south alternatives to what I currently take, but that didn’t work out. The ride went pretty well, though. I felt pretty good the whole time and it’s a good experience to be in the saddle for 2.5 hours.

You can see where I screwed up here.

Results:

Link to results

It was a great day for a race and this was a great race. The race was well organized and had a lot of support from the community.

The water temperature was about 64 degrees and it was great. My swim wasn’t fast, but it was good for me.

The first transition was an event in itself. It was nice that the transition spots were assigned, but the whole transition area was on loose gravel and running on that in bare feet was painful. They had some mats down, but not in the transition area. More mats would have been nice. Also, since the bike is point to point, I had to put all of my stuff into a bag that could be transported to the finish.

The bike course was very challenging and I was glad that I have a triple chainring on my bike. The bike started with a climb up a pretty steep hill. I wasn’t going all out on the bike, but I did manage to pass a few people in the climbs even though I could use some more practice on the bike. I think I averaged between 7 and 10 mph on the climbs and I was in the smallest chainring in the front for most of the climbs. Some of the decents were also scary since they were so steep. There was one where my bike was shaking because of how fast I was going. I didn’t bother to look down to see how fast I was going. There should be some good pictures of me on the bike because I was pretty much by myself when I passed the photographers. I was in my aerobars and looking pretty focused. I hope they turned out good.

I finished the bike and racked it in T2 and was feeling pretty good. I changed my shoes quickly and ran out of T2. My stomach was feeling a little sloshy and I had a small stitch in my side, but I must have looked pretty good because I heard a little kid say, “That guy is fast!” as I passed by. The run started up a big hill and I had been warned about this, so I took it slow. That was a good strategey because the rest of the run course was pretty flat and I was able to pick up my pace. I think I picked up my pace as the race went on, but I didn’t have a watch on, so I’m not sure. I passed quite a few people, though. One of the highlights was a little kid who set up his own water station and was working furiously to hand out water by himself. I also had a little foot race going on with one guy who eventually passed me. The run ended by going down the hill you ran up to start the race. That was tough and I really thought I was going to get hurt. I finally just let my body go down the hill. When I got to the bottom, I was moving pretty well and I saw the guy who had passed me up earlier, so I kicked it up to chase him down. We had a pretty good race and he beat me to the finish, but I could hear the crowd cheering both of us, so that was cool. I was really happy with my run.

The post race party was great. The park was a great setting and they had great food. The only thing that would have made it better was a free beer for the triathletes.

I used a Sugoi triathlon top for the first time in this race and it was awesome. I usually wear a dri fit T-shirt because I don’t like sleeveless tops, but I’ll never wear a t-shirt for a tri again. The only downside was that I got sunburned on the back of my shoulders. I Should have done a better job with the sunscreen.

Overall, this was a great race. It was very well organized and the community support was the best of any race I have done to date. I would definitely do this race again.

Finally, a big thanks to Mike for letting us use his place and thanks to Bryce and Kim for convincing me to do this race. The house was awesome and it was really nice of Mike to let us stay there. My friend Dan also did the race. Bryce was the big winner and Dan came in second (out of us), but we were all within a couple of minutes of each other. Kim had an awesome race as well.

I biked to and from work today.

This morning, my friend Dan joined me and it took us 1:56 for 26 miles. The moving average was 15 mph. We maxed out at 21.5 mph, but my HR averaged 144 bpm. It was cold and there was a pretty strong wind from the north. It was good to have the company on the ride because it does get boring.

On the way home, I tried a slightly different route to avoid Hintz road. It added a mile, but it was better than biking on Hintz. Now I just need to find a way to avoid Elmhurst road and possibly Mt. Prospet Rd. Anyway, it took me 2 hours for 27 miles at a moving average of 15.1 mph. My HR averaged 130 and my max speed was 25.8 mph. I had the wind with me going south, but there was a wind out of the East. I took Lawrence Ave. home because it has a bike lane, but if you want to see some of the worst driving in the world, that’s definitely the street to check out. People not payign attention, pulling over at random spots, a truk turned right in front of me, then I got stuck behind a stupid bus. Anyway, I made it to and from work safely.

It was a little cooler today, but it made for a good run. Fritz came with me the whole time and he loved it. I ran slower than I normally do, but I had to make a lot of stops and detours to avoid other dogs because of Fritz. He doesn’t do so well with other dogs.

26 miles, 1:48:06, 15.7 mph average.

Today was worse than yesterday. Mostly because my butt was sore from 2 hours in the saddle yesterday. Once I got going, it was fine, though. I had a better average today. I was mostly slowed down by stoplights and a stiff wind out of the west. I wore the HR monitor strap today and averaged 133 bpm with a max of 166 bpm. So again, I didn’t push it too much. In any case, I hope to do it again on Thursday.