It's been a while since I posted something up so I'll recap the little that's been going on. Since transitioning to Ironman training, workouts have been more enjoyable since I get more variety with swimming and cycling. I'm actually enjoying swimming this time around because even though there was about a 6 month period where I didn't swim at all, I feel I'm almost back to where I left off. I think this comes in part from doing way more swim drills and working on form for 800yds every workout (2500yds is a typical workout for now). What sucks about swimming is it takes up so much time, from driving to the pool, changing, swimming, changing, and driving back. A 50min workout can pretty much take up 2hrs of my day.
Cycling is a different story. I'm not that great of a cyclist in the first place (my fault since I don't put that much mileage in), but I haven't gotten back to where I was in October. Actually I never really know how well I'm doing until I race anyway since riding streets and paths there is so much stop and go that looking at my average speed means nothing. Oh well, I'll just keep at it, can't go wrong with being consistent!
We did have a half marathon a few weeks ago in Rockford (Chrisy, Marty and I) that went as well as it could. It was a warm day and I doubt that neither of us were acclimated to running in warmer weather yet, but we toughed it out. Anyway, everybody else racing had to endure the same conditions. When I finished I waited a little bit for Marty and when he got there I went to see if they had times/places posted. I looked at my age group and my name was on the top! Hey, it goes as they say, you never know who shows up on race day. Luckily for me there weren't any especially fast 30-34 year old males running that I was able to get the age group win with my 2nd slowest half marathon time! I'll take it, hardware is hardware. Marty did an awesome job and ended up 7th in his age group (25-29 males), yeah...I think he's catching up! Chrisy came into this with a goal just to finish. She's had a few half's within the past month with a pretty good PR 2 weeks prior so I think this is a good add-on to her being a Half Fanatic (a group of crazy people who do a ton of half marathons haha). She was walking at some point taking pictures and posting them up on Facebook! That's awesome, and no matter to me because when most people were sleeping she traveled 13.1mi on her own legs. Good job Chrisy and Marty!
Well, as the title says, Ragnar Relay is this week. Races are usually pretty serious events for me as I train hard for them so I try to give it what I got to see how far I've come. Ragnar can be another serious race if you want it to, for me I feel it's a break in my season for some fun. Not that other races aren't fun, they're usually tons of fun! But Ragnar Relay is on a whole different level. Wait a minute...you must be thinking, "What the heck is Ragnar Relay?". It's a ~200mi relay that's done with 12 runners. There are a bunch of them across the country, but we are doing the one around here from Madison, WI to Montrose Beach here in Chicago.
How it works is we have two 15-passenger vans, each with 6 runners. Van1 starts while Van2 heads up to the 7th leg which is the first major exchange. During Van1's turn the first runner heads off to start the 1st leg and the van drives up to the exchange at the 2nd leg. The first runner hands off to the 2nd runner and the process repeats. Once all 6 runners in Van1 run, the 6th runner hands off to the 7th runner which is in Van2 and they repeat the same process as Van1. Van1 will drive up to the next major exchange (leg 13) and get to rest until Van2 gets there. Each van will go 3 times so each runner runs three separate legs running a total of 14-20mi (all legs are different mileage). At the end, as the last runner is within about 100yds to the finish line, all the runners get together and crosses as a team. Then it's time to gorge on burgers, pizza, beer, etc.! As crazy as it sounds, it's a really fun race. I may try to make two teams next year, if you're a runner and you want to be crazy like us let me know and you've got a spot!
So yes, this is my fun race for the season...I did it last year and it was a blast! It's only a few days away but I still can't wait. Well, I'd like to mention everyone on the team so here's our team name and our roster in the order we are running:
Team Better Off in the Long Run
1. Derik Pham
2. Melissa Pizarro
3. Dan Ly
4. Marty Bernardo
5. Quinn Huynh
6. Ramen Tomaneng
7. Lisa Chavez
8. David Mast
9. Lindsay Mast
10. George Drase
11. Katie Villacres
12. Tim Bernardo
We'll most likely be posting live updates as the race goes on. I'll have details about that soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment