Recovery week of Mon. 9-17

Savage Mountain levels out. Finally.
Damn knee warmers just would not stay up.

Mon. 9-17 & Tue. 9-18
No exercise. Pretty sore and tight all over, only nasty spot is the left knee on the side, by the top outer corner of the knee and less so for a few inches up from there. Knee spot hurts sharply when stand up from low seated position.

Wed. 9-19
Right out of bed feeling much much better all over, even knee.
Run easy 35mins in eve.

Thur. 9-19
Start coached swim program. Tue. & Thur. 6a-7a. Starting next week would've been better, but the schedule is not under my control, and it's too perfect to pass up, held at a very convenient school pool (G'town Prep). Form drills, some with short swim fins "zoomers" first time I've ever used any fin. Then 4x100 descending, Started at 2min20secs, last one at about 2:17.
Can I get my daily dose of inner peace thru physical exhaustion thing via swimming? Hmmmm.

30min visit to the massage therapist. Worked fairly hard on trouble spots. Thinks could be irritated tendon, tendonitis. Tight connecting muscles/tissue chains (IT Band, thigh, hammies) pull on tendon, tendon resists, pulls back into itself, gets irritated when keeps getting pulled on as in lengthy bike ride. Bent knee is max pull situation. Address this with stretching and self massage (foam roller, etc.), ice, and TLC in general.

Geeky look back at more Savageman race data. I can do this for days, maybe even weeks.
Cals consumed on bike = ~950 = 260cals/hr avg during race

HammerGel: ~450cals
E-Gel: ~140cals
1 banana: ~120cals max
2 water bottles
Perpetuem drink mix: ~150cals
.4 clif bar: ~110 cals

Cals expended on the course.
swim - est'd 400
bike - 2140
Run - 1300
Total - ~3900

Bike Data

Entire workout (165 watts):
Duration: 3:36:15 (3:39:40)
Work: 2139 kJ
TSS: 262.1 (intensity factor 0.853)
Norm Power: 196
VI: 1.19
Distance: 56.357 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 421 165 watts
Heart rate: 84 228 144 bpm
Cadence: 26 102 70 rpm
Speed: 2.3 38.1 15.6 mph

Small moments. As I remember them.

Mature knitter sitting in her oh-so-comfy looking folding chair at the top of the park road hill, cheering in a relaxed fashion and knitting. Told her I expected that purple sweater to be ready for a fitting when I came around on lap 2. She let me down, clearly not a NYC knitter.

Realizing that 12th in my AG would've been 4th in the 30-34.

Tortuous signage along the Savage Mountain bike climb. Provoked some of the darker comments exchanged between bikers. Sour but funny even at the time. Bitter grinners.

Rider 1 struggling up the road, as rider 2 comes up on him - "Whew" (huff) whew (puff) "plenty of damn climbin' eh?,"
Rider 2 puffing, wheezing, bent over putting everything into every pedal stroke head shaking, spits out a single angry syllable "fark!" (or something).

Rider A to anyone in earshot, announcing he's not a fan of the handmade mile markers lovingly posted on the roadside along the climb. "Enough with the f%#@! signs, I don't want to know I've got 4miles to go to the summit at a mother f&%$!@ing 11% grade!"

Rider X - "I was hunched over the bars and sucking wind so hard up that thing I think my tongue about caught in the front spokes."

Me knocking out the 7.1mi climb in 40mins 48scs for a 10.3mph avg speed and 24th fastest ascent out of 158.

The pics are courtesy of a triathlete who puts his pro grade pics out free for personal use by racers (aaronpics.com). Enjoy.

Mile 5 of the bike. Cold!

One lap down, one to go.
That's my Clint Eastwood squint.

Savageman Tri & Another Home Media Experiment

Action Cam.
Hold it in hand, mount it on something stationary, or, moving. Watch out Scorcese.

Apologies if I am testing the download capabilities of your system and/or your patience. I don't really know what I'm doing at all, if you haven't picked up on that yet. Feedback on the content, the format or tech stuff, ways to make it less cumbersome on the user - all welcome and appreciated.

Nevertheless, for the investment of a little time and, so far, about $170 in equipment (voice recorder, action cam, batteries) I can now burden unsuspecting clickers with still pics, audio of my voice, and now... home video. It's aim and shoot with the vid cam, no viewfinder. A weak microphone. Not sure if I'll keep the thing.

The Half Iron distance race yesterday was at least as tough as I suspected. Rather sore all over today. The race was cold and hilly in a nutshell. Hilly enough that it may indeed be the hardest half iron distance tri in the world. According to tri veterans on hand "The World's Toughest Half" in Oregon may have been dethroned.

Hills, hills, hills and then a few more hills. Cold. Race day temp spread was hi 30's early and peaking in hi 50's. Made for some teeth chattering and shivering on the bike when I wasn't working hard on an uphill. Sunny most of the day, little wind. The most significant data of the day - water temp was pretty warm, maybe near 70, thankfully.

I'm about ready to divorce my left knee, drafting the papers as we speak. We argued ever more bitterly and loudly over the the final 2hrs of the 3hr40m I spent on the 56mi bike. I pleaded for peace, babied it, went easy, telling myself it'd leave more fuel in my tank for the run anyway. Once I got off the bike, I had no knee issues for the entire 1hr58mins of my 13.1mi run time.

Dif in water v air temp made for lake surface fog early in the morn on Sun. A pic of fog and no fog swim start area below.

Day before the race, the swim start area in the afternoon.

Lots of dour looks at the Sat. race info meeting when I took the pic above. It was mid 40's gray and windy at the time, sure kept the meeting moving along.

Race morning.
Swim start area ~90mins before the 8a.m. gun.
Those boats are bass fishermen, great timing for their tournament, eh?

It was an in-water start. Line between the orange buoys, one in the pic and one another 50 yards off shore, then swim to the upper left .6 mile, turn around and swim back. Fog was thick enough that I could not see more than 20 yards in any direction. Made sighting the buoys fun, er, impossible.

Took my time drying off and donning lots of layers before rolling out on the bike.

The choice end-of-the-rack transition set spot.
My bike and race gear pile, pre-race.

Mayor Fenty was #64, with me #63 we were rack neighbors. He beat me out of the water, no achievement there, ha. I caught him at mi 40 of the bike. Found out he dnf'd. Letting down the District, tsk, tsk. Not sure if he attempted any of the run. My guess is he packed it in after the bike.

He was not alone. Only 101 individual racers (non-relay team folks) finished. There were a lot of people forced to dismount and walk their bikes up the steep hills, others resorted to doing the paperboy weave back and forth across the road to slowly get to the top. Likewise, lots of walking going on during the run. Not to mention some dry heavers and full out chunk blowers on both courses as well. Makes you feel studly when you roll past vomit trails. As stories start to emerge, it seems many pros and elites really "raced" the course like a typical Half, and paid the price: dnf-ing, doing a finish line bonk - thanks, don't mind me, I'm just gonna curl up over here on this open patch of parking lot pavement.

There was a unique award for the quickest ascent of the 7.1mi Savage Mountain climb that gets the real bike fun started around 18miles into the course. I managed 24th out of 158 total riders who made it up the climb. 40min48secs, 10.29mph.

Otherwise, pretty middlin race in terms of placement.
37th out of 101 finishers.
31 out of 85 men (Note - I got chicked by 6 ladies!!)
12th out of 17 finishers in my 35-39yr old AG (21 started, 4 dnf)

Swim 47:29 (94th out of 101 finishers; 17th out of 17 in my AG)
T1 11:26
Bike 3:39:52 (10th out of 17 finishers in AG)
T2 3:06
Run 1:57:40 (20th overall of 101 solo racers; 17th among 85 men; 6th out of 17 in AG) (about a 9min mi pace)
Total - 6hr 39mins 33secs.

Meanwhile, back in Rock Creek Park near the beltway, Dublin-man threw down a 1:52 half mary (8:36 pace avg) in a prep race for the target marathon. Well done! Let's hope I got a few of those genes.

The audio below is 4mins 13 secs recorded on my drive home Sun.
The video experiment is roughly 30 secs, shows race start area including me stepping in and taking the above fog pic. No relationship btwn the audio and video.