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Over the weekend, I participated in my first Pacific Coast Trail Runs event.  I did the Stinson Beach 12k which turned out to be a more difficult event than I expected.  The trail has a pretty aggressive elevation gain with just about all of the gain at the start of the trail.  Starting from Stinson State Beach, we ran 4.9 km uphill, going about 1600 feet before running along the side of the mountain for a short distance before turning pretty much straight downhill to go back to the beach.  The total elevation gain on the course was 1850 feet.

This was the second time I’d run a 12k distance race, with this one being decidedly harder than the bridge to bridge run in San Francisco I did last time.  In the 12k overall, I got 13th place, and got second place in the age group results. My time of 1:18:14 got me an average of a 10:43 minutes / mile pace. Seeing as how challenging the course was, I’m not disappointed in my results, but am confident that on my next run in December, I can turn it up a notch to 11.

A couple months ago I heard about the San Francisco Triathlon on Treasure Island.  At the time, I knew there was a sprint and an Olympic distance, but relegated myself to the sprint distance. However, after the last triathlon I did, I just decided to try for the Olympic distance.  Last year, in 2007, I made a personal goal to do an Olympic distance tri in 2008, and the SF Triathlon seemed to be my last chance.

Well, I signed up for the event, which occurred yesterday morning.  The race took place on Treasure Island in the San Francisco bay. Treasure Island is part of the island the Bay Bridge passes through.  I woke up at the super early hour of 5am to make it to the island by 6am so I could check in and prepare my transition area before the early race start at 7:15am.

Since the island isn’t very big, the course was a series of loops.  The first event, swimming was 1.5km, where I swam twice around a triangle with 250m sides.  From there I jumped on my bike for a 40km bike course.  The 40km course consisted of 6 laps of a ~6.66km circuit.  After biking was the run, 3 laps at ~3.33km each, for a total of 10k.  The distance are the same as the ones used in the Olympics, making this an Olympic triathlon, and thus, much harder than the previous sprint triathlons I’ve done.

My initial estimate for the course was to complete it all in about 3 1/2 hours, broken down as follows: 30min for the swim, 2 hours for the bike, and 1 hour for the run. The estimate for the bike was taken from a recent 25.4 mile ride that I completed in just under 2 hours. This ended up being the estimate that was very exaggerated because the triathlon course was so flat.  With that being said, here is a breakdown of my results:

Split	Distance	Time (min)	Pace	Rank (overall)
Swim	1.5 km	29:16	31:24 min/mi	119
T1		4:04		268
Bike L1		15:01	16.5 mph	297
Bike L2		13:58	17.74 mph	328
Bike L3		13:50	17.91 mph	310
Bike L4		13:41	18.11 mph	282
Bike L5		13:31	18:33 mph	251
Bike L6		14:13	17.43 mph	234
Bike Total	40 km	1:24:16	17.64 mph	281
T2		3:55		418
Run L1		17:05	8:14 min/mi	139
Run L2		17:14	8:19 min/mi	146
Run L3		16:29	7:57 min/mi	114
Run Total	10 km	50:49	8:10 min/mi	132
Overall		2:52:21		202

So as has been the case with all the past tri’s I have done, biking is my weakest link.  I really need to do more bike training next time.  I’m pretty sure that the only people I passed on my bike yesterday were the people with flat tires (and there were a lot of them!).  The first place guy finished with a time of 2:04:49, which means I’ve got quite a bit of improvement to make. I’m not sure when my next tri is going to be, but now that I know what the Olympic distance is like, I know I can do many more of them.

On Saturday, my local CrossFit affiliate had our Fight Gone Bad day. This was my first official FGB, and having only done it one other time, I decided to forgo the official men’s weight, and do the intermediate weight (which also happened to be the women’s weight). I did the exercises in the following order with the modified weight in parentheses:

• Push Press (65lbs)
• Row
• Wall Ball (14lbs)
• Sumo Dead Lift High Pull (55lbs)
• Box Jump

I ended up doing the following reps for each exercise:

	Push Press	Row	Wall Ball	SDLHP	Box Jump	Total
Round 1	25	11	15	20	23	94
Round 2	20	10	16	18	20	84
Round 2	20	8	15	18	20	81

For a total score of 259. I tried to be as consistent as I could between subsequent rounds, and I think I accomplished that goal pretty well.  I also set the bar pretty high for the next time I do a FGB with men’s weight.  Especially considering that I felt like I had energy left over at the end of the workout.  I was tired, but not lie down on the ground for 5 minutes tired.

Over the weekend, I did my second 10k in 3 weeks. A running club in San Jose holds an annual trail running event with different distances. I chose to do the 10k distance as that is right now the longest distance I’m comfortable running.

The course was located in the hills south west of San Jose and the start was in a little valley at the edge of the Quicksilver park. The course description mentioned that there were going to be hills along the route, but I was not prepared for what the course actually consisted of.  At the start was a topo of the route, and, being the map lover I am, I spent time reading the course layout.  The starting line was somewhere around 600 feet.  From there, the course would wind up a road to a single track trail, where it would continue to ascend.  The ascent continued until about the 10k half-way point, where it then began the descent.  In all, I read that there was about 1000 feet of elevation gain. Most of which was continuous.  So it was quite difficult.

I didn’t feel particularly confident in my run up the mountain, and went slightly slower down the second half since I didn’t want to injure my knees.  Somewhere in the last kilometer, a guy passed me, and actually scared me when he came up.  I didn’t think about it, but it turned out I had been in the lead, and this guy just overtook me for the lead.  I followed him closely to the finish, finishing 7 seconds behind him.  This put me in second place overall for the 10k!  I could have won! Despite that stupid mistake, I did get second place and finished in 56 minutes, 58 seconds.  So it wasn’t a fast 10k, but the hill slowed everyone way down.

In the end, the race was difficult, and made me realize that I need to do more hill running.  My current run routes are all in flat areas.  I think that I’m going to start trying to do the dish path more often and work on my interval times there as a good way to train.

This morning I did my second triathlon of 2008. It was the 15th Annual Tri For Real.  This is the triathlon which the Tri for Fun series is supposed to prepare you for.  The race was good, and I felt decently comfortable for the swim and bike.  As usual, the bike seemed to be a weak spot, as a lot of people gained and passed me, after I did really well on the swim. For the run, my legs were really tired, and my right leg started getting almost tight.  It wasn’t a cramp, more that the area below the calf was just tight and sore.

I kept track of my splits and posted them here as a record for myself.

Split	Distance	Time (h:mm:ss.ms)	Pace
Swim	700m	12:27.55	28:37 min/mi
Swim to Bike Transition		1:48.0
Bike	19mi	54:12	21.03 mph
Bike to Run Transition		1:01
Run	4mi	30:41.56	7:40 min/mi
Overall	23.4mi	1:40.11

Comparing these results to my results from the last Pleasanton tri, I can see that I swam only slightly slower, biked faster, and ran a bit slower.  I am stoked about the results, as it shows I’m making progress.  The run should have been faster, and by next time, I’ll have worked out the tightness / cramp issue.  Again, without any practice, my swim is pretty good.  Unfortunately, this race didn’t have a timing chip, so I won’t be able to compare my split with those of others; I’d be interested to see how my splits match up with others. My transition times also got a lot better.  Some of the things I tried this time definitely helped out it seems.

The next tri coming up that I’m thinking of is one in November that is on Treasure Island.  They’ve got an Olympic length and a sprint length tri.  I’ve got a couple weeks to decide which one to do before I sign up.  Right now, I’m leaning towards the sprint tri as I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do enough to prepare for a full length tri.  So I’ll have to see how it goes until I register.

Update: I got second in my age division. Of course, there were ony 8 people in that division.  I did manage to get 72nd overall in the Men’s division though.

Update 2: Pictures for the event are posted.

Tonight I completed my first competitive 10k.  Two weeks ago, I did the Nike+ Human Race, though I don’t really consider that in the same level, since it was by my self and there weren’t others to get the same competitive drive.

So I did the Palo Alto Online Moonlight run in 46 minutes, 29 seconds.  That is about a 7 minute 28 second average mile.  Not the greatest, and I was hoping for better. But, on the plus side, I got a sweet shirt.

Update: The results got posted online and it looks like I got 99th overall.  I was off on my time as well. I updated my time and pace above to reflect the official race results.

This morning I did my first triathlon of 2008.  It was the 21st Annual Tri For Fun #3, which is prep race for the 21st Annual Tri For Real.  The race was good, and I felt pretty comfortable the whole time.  So I just wanted to post my splits that I took on my watch as a record for myself.

Split	Distance (mi)	Time (h:mm:ss.ms)	Pace
Swim	0.227	6:52.0	30:15 min/mi
Swim to Bike Transition		2:08.0
Bike	11	32:20.0	20.41mph
Bike to Run Transition		1:59.0
Run	3.1	22:36.0	7:17 min/mi
Overall	14.327	1:05:54	13.04

So it is pretty clear that my transition times need a lot of work.  I’m not at all surprised by the speed I was running at.  I was passing other people, but I also felt that I was going really slow.  I’d really like to see how I did in the swim compared to other people, as I think that the swim is still a strength.  I definitely finished near the very beginning of the group.  So either it is a strength, or I’m not as good at conserving energy as the other racers.

Some notes about things to bring for the next tri.  I need a better way to wipe off my feet after the swim.  Having a tupperware dish with water in it will be crucial as well as a towel for the sole purpose of wiping off the feet.  Having a spare swim cap in case the one next time rips too.  Having some sort of food for while I’m on the bike.  I think that eating something will be a good way to keep up energy and prevent cramps during the run. I also need a bib holder so I don’t have to pin it to my clothes.

Just for reference, here are the splits from the triathlons I did last year.

• Santa Barbara Triathlon 2007
• Carpinteria Triathlon 2007

I’ve finally gotten around to finishing tagging, titling and describing my trip to Singapore and Thailand that occurred in March (!!) of this year.  I know that it is really late, but I guess it is better than never.  I put all the pictures up on flickr for people to check out.  Since I’ve got flickr integration now, you can see the pictures in my photo gallery on my site.  I’ve changed the privacy settings for all the pictures that have people (I know) in them, so to see those you will need to be a contact of mine on flickr.  However for all the other ones, you can check them out on my site.

• Singapore Pictures (with a couple in Malaysia)
• Thailand Pictures

I also have the trip up on my travel page, so you can get a general idea of where I went.  You can check it out at here.

I posted on the 5th about how the travel page now shows all my travels.  Well, I also mentioned that the page loads really slow.  I’m happy to say that I greatly improved the processing bottleneck that existed.  I implemented caching which has sped things up considerably.  Previously, the travel page took ~7 seconds.  The average time from start to finish of script execution on the page was 7.223 seconds, which is crazy long.  I even saw execution times over 10 seconds!  After turning on caching, I’m now seeing times from .572 to .7 seconds.  This is a 10x improvement, and I know I can do even better, especially since this was a quick first pass at improving the page rendering time.  Hopefully visitors to the travel pages will no longer notice that it is my side being slow, rather it’ll be the javascript and google maps servers that are slowing down the page load.

I’ve had a bunch of ideas recently for my travel page that I’ve wanted to implement.  However, in order to implement them, I’ve needed to rewrite the Javascript that powers the page.  I chose to use the my travel page that I’ve wanted to implement.  However, in order to implement them, I’ve needed to rewrite the Javascript that powers the page.  I chose to use the Prototype Javascript framework due to my familiarity with it and its browser compatibility.  After some time spent rewriting the code, I was able to get the page back to the same feature set (for only like the 5th time).

The rewrite has allowed me to quickly and easily add two new features to the page.  The first feature is the ability to view track segments.  This means that I can have a track that is broken up into segments, and each segment can be shown individually.  Currently, I don’t have any trips that have track segments, but I may start taking advantage of that in the future.

Second, when no trip is selected on the travel page, something interesting is displayed.  Now, all trips are aggregated together and shown on the map.  So so you can get an idea of all the places I’ve been at a glance.  Note that right now the page load is really slow.  I know this and I know why it is slow, and I’ve got plans to address it.

As a final note, I’ve tested the page on Safari 3.1.1, Firefox 3.x and IE 7.  With other browsers, your mileage may vary.  And seriously, stop using IE, please.  It hurts the internet.