Around the Bay – Race Result

Wet Run

Today Beatriz, Marcos and I did around the Bay, 30 km swim… I mean, wet run! The weather wasn’t at our side, as it was raining most of the way, specially at the start. Having said that, it wasn’t too cold and it wasn’t heavy rain either, which is good.

Here are the times:

• Marcos: 2 Hours 31 Minutes
• Hans: 2 Hours 41 Minutes
  • Overall: 1571/4931 (32%)
  • Age Group: 181/373 (48%)
• Beatriz: 3 Hours 39 Minutes

I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed with my result. I was expecting to do a bit better and not going through so much pain. After the 25 km, my quads were really hurting. I guess the 3 hours bike ride on Friday (72 km uphill @ 182 Watts) didn’t help either, but still. In the positive side, my hydration was good, so was my energy.

Also interesting is that my heart rate started unusually  high at 160 bpm, not sure it was because I didn’t sleep well, or what. At least it didn’t go much higher, although I just ignored it after a while, as I was actually feeling OK.

I had a late start, I crossed the start about 4 minutes after the race started… all Marcos fault, as we were waiting for him to get out of the washroom and he never did. We found out after the race that he had left and didn’t see us! No harm done, it only counts when you cross the starting line anyway!

Anyhow, with that late start I passed by the 2:45 rabbit around the 20 km mark, and let me tell you, I was starting to feel some pain there. Anyhow, I asked her what time she got, and I realized that if I finished with her,  I was still 4 minutes ahead of my worst expectation. Now the trick was that she would walk every once in a while, and I would pass her… but then again, she would catch-up. That was driving me nuts! I was trying really hard to leave her behind, but my legs weren’t really helping. Anyhow, we crossed the finish line together, well, only because she realy slowed down the last 30m to make her time. Good job!

As for me, well, once again I was reminded that I’m not a runner. 😦

There is always next year! By the way, here is my race HR data. I did adjust the speed to match 30 km distance. I had to reduce the recorded speed by 5.5% as my watch thought that I ran almost 32 km! That might also explain why I was expecting to do 2:30, as my “recorded average” was 11.9 km/h (before adjustment). Anyhow, I will re-calibrate it for next time.

Oh, and if I didn’t mention before, this was my longest run ever…

Around the Bay 2009 - Heart Rate data

Around the Bay, around the corner!

Sunday I’ll have my first race of 2009: Around the Bay (30 km run)

I didn’t know, but the race is now the oldest road race in North America, older than the Boston Marathon which was born three years after the Around the Bay Road Race. Pretty cool!

This will be the longest run I ever done. Before that, the longest distance I ran was 25 km. So, the plan is to beat my Personal Best, which means finishing! To be honest I’m not too concerned about the race, I really just want to have fun. My main goal is Ironman France, so this will be a good training.

I haven’t’ really tapper for this race either. I already trained for 11 hours this week. The only few changes to the original plan was:

• Switched my day off to Saturday, instead of Friday;
• Cut my long bike from 4:15 hours to 3 hours;
• Eliminated my 35 min recovery run, just because I’m going to a Raptors game tonight…

The long ride was a bit brutal though. Not because it went any harder then usual, but it is hard to wake up early enough to still start working at 9 am! Good thing I’ve worked from home today… so no traveling time required! But, back to the ride, it was pretty good:

• Total Time: 3:05 hours
• Average power: 182 Watts
• Heart Rate Average: 133 bpm
• Distance: 71.5 km (Ironman France all the way to the top of the mountain!)
• Calories: 2765 kcal

This was my best climb so far, but I did one change. I started taking a gel each 30 min, instead of 45 minutes or even 1 hour as I did in the past. That worked really well. The last few kilometers were awesome, lots of energy. I averaged 216 Watts for the last 5 km with a 145 bpm Heart Rate Average! Here is the data from Computrainer displayed on the Polar Performance Software:

3 Hour Bike Ride - March 27th

Anyhow, back to Around the Bay. My expectation is to finish it in 2:45 hours, but up to 2:30 hours is unlikely, but possible.

I’ll post my results on Sunday after the race…

Traveling with a bike – be aware!

A couple days ago I had a post describing my unpleasant experience booking a flight to the Ironman France. I have to say, I wasn’t happy at the time, but I got the issue solved, so I decided to remove the posting. Here is a summary of what happened.

Sun 3/8/2009 – Booked flight online Toronto-Munich-Nice

Mon 3/9/2009 – Send an email to follow up with charges regarding a bike that I would bring in a box:

“ I´m traveling to from Canada (Toronto) to Europe (Nice) and taking my bike in a case (120 cm x 78 cm x 27 cm – 26 kg). I would like to know if that is considered one item of luggage or if there is any special charge. ”

Tue 3/17/2009 – Received a response “Please contact our Lufthansa General Number 800 645-3880”.

Tue 3/17/2009 – Called Lufthansa and I were told that it would be a charge of $100 to $150 at the airport, and I was also told that I should declare the bike, which I did. It was confirmed for Toronto-Munich, but I was also told to call back next day as the Munich-Nice flight had not been confirmed.

Wed 3/18/2009 I called again and I was then told the airplane from Munich to Nice could not carry the bike. When I asked for an alternative, I was told that I could take a flight to Frankfurt instead, but there would be a charge of $8 per passenger (airport fees are different) and another $150 per passenger for the change. When I called again, I was told $100…

After all that I sent a complaint to Lufthansa Customer Relations department and they were kind enough to wave the change fee.

Now, the lesson learned is that not every plane can carry a bike and you should call first to make sure the aircraft you’re flying will allow a bike. Not sure about you, I never heard about that. Well, next time I’ll be more do better.

Training Progress – March 15th

One of the problems of having a blog while training for an Ironman is that there isn’t lot of time to write. I can honestly say that I’m either working or working out. That is why you got to love the sport, otherwise it would be impossible to do it.

Anyhow, I’m a number’s guy. I kept track of all my workouts for the last 3 years or more. The good thing about it is that I can track my improvements. For example, exactly a month ago, I did a long bike ride and a recovery run:

	February 14th	March 14th	Note
Workout	Bike CLR6	Bike CLR9	Long ride
Course	IM France	IM France	Computrainer
Duration	3 Hours 15 min	4 Hours
Distance	74.1 km	98.5 km	Highest point of the course is at 72 km
HR AVG	139 bpm	134 bps
Calories	3107	3583
Power AVG	173 W	175 W	March 14th average at 72 km mark was 180W
Workout	Run RRR3	Run RRR4	Recovery run
Course	Close to home	Close to home
Duration	30 min	35 min
Distance	5.3 km	6.2 km
HR AVG	153	143	10 bpm drop!
Calories	550	582
Speed AVG	10.6 km/h	10.6 km/h

So, in other words, I am getting a bit better. I started my Ironman program in January and so far, it has being an average of 11 hours of training per week, which includes one week where I was sick for 3 days and another that I went snowboarding for 2 days:

Training Log - March 15th

I got to say, the last day was pretty hard. I swam 3.8 km in the morning, and went for a run (2:10 Hours run). I was truly tired after the 18th km. The nice part of the Sunday run, was that I ran with Paulo, another buddy of mine, who is a pretty good runner, at least for my standards! For years, when I ran with Paulo, he is always waiting for me, going ahead and coming back… which is not very motivating I have to say… but yesterday, was no different. 🙂

Having said that, I ran to his home (about 7 km in 37 min) then we ran together for about one hour and half. That was awesome, because he really kept me honest. Specially on hills, it was very hard to keep up, but when you’re chatting you tend to forget about the pain (and sometimes to breath too). Paulo, thanks for the run, we have to do it more often!

In any case, it was a hard but nice workout, when you consider that running is my weakest sport. Here is the graph from Polar (nice HR average):

March 15th Long Run