Getting there, you had to park about a mile down the road from the start in a school and hike it to packet pickup. Thankfully, unlike some of the more local races, they didn’t also give you your T-Shirt before the race and make you lug it around. Lines moved quickly [even the line for the toilets!] and I was in and out with my number in hand in no time. I took the time before the race to jog for a mile or so, and then spent some time banging massaging my knee where it has been sore, hoping it would help. We eventually got lined up and got started about 10 minutes late.

Coach had given me a race plan of taking the first mile easy @ 9:45, then going miles 1-5 at 9:10, and going all out the last one. I was feeling great that day and felt I would have left a lot on the course if I did that, and wanted to see how much I could PR, so kind of tossed the pacing plan to the wayside. I did decide to keep the major theme with it and go for negative splits. I hit the 1 mile mark at 8:30 and decided to keep it at that pace until the 5K mark. For the first 3 miles, I honestly didn’t feel like I was racing. It seemed like just a nice easy jog to me. My average time for the first 5K was 8:30min/mi with an average HR of 173bpm.

Once I hit the 3 mile mark I decided to lift the pace a little bit and see what I had in me. I was still feeling pretty good at this point, and my knee had not bothered me once. I hit mile 4 at 8:04 pace and still felt great so picked it up even more. I’m fairly certain that from mile 3 on, not a single person passed me! Mile 5 saw me at a pace of 7:26. Unfortunately, Mile 5 had the one small hill and me knee decided to start hurting when I hit the hill. I was able to change my stride and have my knee stop hurting for the most part, but it was not pleasant!

As I was running, I noticed in the distance most of the time a guy holding an orange flag. I never knew what he was doing while I was running, but afterwards, I’ve decided he was probably the pacer for people trying to qualify for Peachtree. I started reeling him in after mile 3, and he would slowly get closer each mile. After the pain on the hill I wasn’t sure if I could catch him, but he was close enough to motivate me to sprint the last 0.2m and beat him to the line. As a side note, if he was the pacer, he was 30s slower than qualifying pace!

I came across the line with a time of 50:30. I was thrilled with this time. This is only the 2nd time I’ve done a 10K, my first being last year’s Peachtree Road Race where I went in 58:43. That meant this was a PR by ~8:10. Wow! I realize that it helps that it was because my only other 10K was a few months ago, and it was after I just got up to the distance, but still, I’m going to be happy with this PR for a while :)

After the race, we had to walk up way too many steps to pick up our schwag bags. Unfortunately it was just a cotton t-shirt and not a technical T, but I guess you can’t get those every time. I did score some form of coupon to waffle house, as well as a much needed banana and some sort of chocolaty tasty granola bar. These helped as I hiked the mile back to the parking lot where my car was!

If there was anything negative about this race, it would be that I didn’t qualify for Timegroup A for the Peachtree Road Race today. I missed doing so by 30 seconds. However, that wasn’t a goal of this race – it was to just see how a 10K went since I hadn’t done one in so long. In any event, it’s not a big deal as my time from one of the 5Ks I did last fall already qualifies me for Timegroup A!

All in all, this race was a blast, and I can see myself setting some new PRs here in the years ahead!

If you’re interested in seeing some of the splits & data, here it is [I'm a data junkie, what can I say]:

Overall: 50:30 – 8:01min/mi – 176bpm – 82spm

Miles 0 – 3 – 25:26 (8:29 min/mi) – 173bpm – 82.5spm
Miles 3-6 – 23:06 (7:42 min/mi) – 178bpm – 81.7spm
Miles 6-6.3 – 1:58 (6:31 min/mi) – 185bpm – 82.2spm

1 – 8:27 – 174bpm – 82.9spm
2 – 8:34 – 176bpm – 82.6spm
3 – 8:25 – 170bpm – 82.1spm
4 – 8:04 – 167bpm – 81.9spm
5 – 7:26 – 183bpm – 81.0spm
6 – 7:36 – 184bpm – 82.2spm
6.3 – 1:58 (6:31min/mi) – 185bpm – 82.2spm

You can view pretty graphs & such as well at Garmin Connect

Running
In March, I decided that I was tired of being a lazy bum and decided to start running again. I picked a 5K a few months away [the Big Peach 5K at the beginning of May] and started on a Couch to 5K program. Oddly enough, my problem was I couldn’t go slow enough in training. I eventually learned how to pace myself, and completed my first 5K in over 8 years. Woohoo! Since that first race, I’ve competed in one running race every month the rest of the year. In addition to just competing, I somehow managed to get a PR in every race by around a minute [with the exception of the last race in December]. Not only that, but I got 2nd place in my Age Group in the race in November!

As in aside, I have figured out the key to doing well in races and placing in your age group – race small races! The race in November only had about 80-100 people, and maybe 5-10 in my age group. So I suppose getting 2nd place in my AG for that race is almost like cheating, but I’ll take it!

On top of all the 5Ks that I ran, I also did one 10K for the year – the Peachtree Road Race. I haven’t done another since then, but in the upcoming year I hope to do quite a few of them now that the distance is no problem for me. My times in all my races for the year are shown below:

2009-05-02 – Big Peach 5K – 29:15
2009-06-06 – Virginia Highlands Summerfest 5K – 28:15
2009-08-15 – ATC Grand Finale 5K – 26:30
2009-09-12 – FirED Up 5K – 24:34
2009-10-19 – Germantown Streetfest 5K Bier Run – 22:40
2009-11-26 – TN 5K – 21:56 [2nd place AG]
2009-12-19 – Virginia Highlands Christmas 5K – 23:35

2009-07-04 – Peachtree Road Race [10K] – 58:53

Cycling
I haven’t done any road racing, and I haven’t done any mountain biking [racing at least] but I do love me some cyclocross. When September rolled around I almost forgot about running and threw myself into the game of cyclocross. I had started training in June and built up a pretty good fitness level, but unfortunately [kinda] a long vacation in the middle of the season derailed some of my fitness.

Cyclocross is a lot more difficult to compare your progress as you can’t look at your time since the course varies wildly from week to week, and even on the same property from year to year. So instead of looking at time, I decided to just look at how I placed in my category [CX4 - Or beginner]. Last year, my best placing had me only beating 22% of the people in my category. This year, in every race except for my first back from vacation, I placed better than that. My best placings saw me beating 60%, 50%, and 44% of the other competitors. Definite improvement from last year, but still a long way to go!

Training
As mentioned above, I saw good improvements and progress made in both running and biking throughout the year. I was completely self coached and came up with my own training. My biggest problem throughout the year was sticking with my schedule and talking myself out of workouts. I would go some months with only working out once due to vacation, lots going on at work, or other various lame excuses. My biggest goal for the new year is to fix this and stick with my training plan and stay consistent.

With all that said, I still got a decent amount of training in for my first year training full time. The totals for my year were:

• 76 runs for a total of 241 miles with a total time of 42:39
• 63 rides for a total of 848 miles with a total time of 54:22

A breakdown of both total miles and number of activities per month is shown in the 2 graphs below (click for larger size)

Miles of Activity by month:








Number of activities by month:








All in all, I’m quite pleased with how my 2009 year of racing and training ended up. There are some big changes under way for 2010 to bring even more success in the New Year!

I have been debating doing a marathon for a long time, with the original goal of signing up for one this fall. However, I’m going to be on vacation for 3 weeks, and then cyclocross season starts – neither of which are very conducive to the marathon lifestyle. Due to this, I decided that 2010 was going to be the year of the marathon for me.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks, but I look forward to having this finite goal and event to train for. There is nothing like laying down cold hard cash on the race registration free to motivate you to train! My training starts up soon after cyclocross season ends, with enough of a break for me to recover! It should be fun doing my first marathon on home turf – the route actually goes directly by my apartment, if I weren’t running it I could watch/cheer from my balcony. Who knows, if I catch the marathon bug this race, this could be the first of many marathons I do for 2010!

I woke up nice and early that morning with no problems. Naturally, I didn’t end up with as much sleep as I had planned and got less than 6 hours of sleep. After gearing up and having a Nutri-Grain I headed out the door. The race was a mile down the street from me so I walked/jogged there as my warm up (There hasn’t been a single race yet this year I’ve had to drive to!) Upon arriving I found a lot more people than expected, but easily found registration and waited for the start. Unlike all my previous races, the course was not published online so I had no knowledge of the race course. I was a little apprehensive about this, as I like to have either run the course or checked it out on Google maps to have some landmarks. However, I always run with my Garmin 305 so gained some comfort in the fact that I could just check my watch at any time for an exact mileage check.

At 7:30am on the dot the gun went off and we were off. My goal for this race was to PR again – in fact, every race I’ve run this year has resulted in a PR and I’d like to continue that trend for as long as possible! My old PR was a 28:15 set 2 months ago, so my pacing strategy was to aim for ~9:00 minute miles. I was also hoping to negative split the race but questioned how feasible this was with no prior knowledge of the course. I was feeling good for the first mile and when I came to the time check I was surprised to see I was at 8:32. During the second mile my heart rate monitor started acting up a little bit and showed a few spikes of my heart rate to over 230. This is by no means normal (or even physically possible for my level of effort?) and while I’ll sometimes see a heart rate of 200 or so in my sprint at the end, I realized this was a hardware malfunction. However, to err on the side of caution I would slow down a bit when this happened. Between slowing down for this and also slowing down to make sure I wouldn’t burn myself out (I hadn’t run with a pace of 8:30 in a race before) I found myself finishing the 2nd mile with a pace of 8:52.

The course was a loop, so the 3rd mile was back the way the first mile came. I was feeling good and picked up pace as the mile went on. I knew that towards the end there would be a downhill section, a long flat stretch of road, and then the turn and loop in the parking deck. Once I hit that downhill I really upped the effort – I was then running with a 6:00 min/mile pace for the last probably half mile. I would later see I crossed mile 3 with a pace of 8:22 before getting to the line. The clock was visible before I got to the line and I knew I had a PR. I ended up crossing the line near 26:30! I was more than happy with this, as I had been able to drop my best time for the 5K by 1:45.

I had a great time with this race and plan to hit up more ATC events in the area. I’m also excited for my next 5K race (early September) as I feel confident that I’ll be able to drop my time even more. I felt comfortable the whole race and based on how I felt during my elevated effort the last half mile I might try to pick up he pace to that level even earlier in the race. If you’re interested in seeing the GPS and more data, you can check it out right here

We were on the Chattahoochee River, on which there are a few small Class 1 rapids and a single Class 2 rapids. The only spill I had was going down the Class 2 rapid my 2nd time. However, I made it down the first time and two times afterwards, so I wasn’t too upset with that! We spent a lot of time learning how to play in ferries and eddies that we saw along the river. Some of the class was a little hesitant on some of the rapids, but since I had done this exact same section of the river before, I had no problems barreling down them (I had taken a swim the first time as well so had no problem with that happening again!) Even though it was so warm out (85+) it was still quite a shock to hit the cold water. You wouldn’t think it, but the water was probably in the mid to low 40′s and was almost too uncomfortable to be in!

Why do I call this cross training? Well, because by the end of the day, I could no longer feel my arms! It took more work than I thought to paddle against the current back up a rapid just so I could coast back down it! I really enjoyed my time on the river though and as soon as I find a good deal (and finish paying for the bike rack for my car I just purchased) I will be getting myself a kayak. I’ve already found a couple of “off-road” triathlons that require the use of a kayak, so who knows, being in the kayak more could really become part of my official training!

To remedy this problem, I headed down to Big Peach Running Co. to be fitted for shoes. I was debated going to another local running store, Phidippides, but since they close at 6pm I have a hard time making it to the store. Once I arrived at Big Peach, I was immediately met and helped by an employee. I was very impressed with their process for getting me into new shoes.

First, I stepped on a device that looked like a scale, which was used to perform a digital analysis on my foot. After standing on it for a few seconds a digital mapping of my foot was displayed on the screen above me. Using this image, they were able to determine that I have high arches. Good to know! The next step was to hop on a treadmill and take a video of me running in “neutral shoes”. Before running, we looked at some sample videos to see what we were looking for. They had examples of good form, over prontation (rolling foot inward) and under pronation (rolling foot outward). I ran for about 30 seconds and hopped off and we took a look at the video. It was fairly evident that I had over pronation, which the employee confirmed. Also worth noting, it appeared from the video I was landing fairly flat footed with each foot strike. The employee didn’t say anything about this but I was paying closer attention to that than I was the pronation!

With all that information, the employee went to the back to pick out some shoes for me to try on. He came back with a pair of Adidas, a pair of Asics, a pair of Mizuno, and one other brand which I already can’t remember! All of these shoes had more support on the inside of the foot, which should help counter balance my tendency to roll my foot inwards. I immediately ruled out the Adidas as they felt too narrow for my foot, and I ruled out the other brand quickly too, leaving me with the Asics and the Mizuno. The Asics immediately felt comfortable to me and very supportive (my every day / work shoes are Asics as well). The Mizuno felt a bit different, and I was having a hard time determining whether it was a good or bad different. After jogging in both of them a few times, I decided to go with the familiarity and the comfort of the Asics, and checked out with my new pair of Asics GT-2140 shoes!

I took them out for a run immediately after getting home and they felt great. I shouldn’t have any problems breaking them in, and look forward to running them into the ground the rest of the year! Now I have all the tools I need to begin training for whatever distance I set my mind to.

Since training for Cyclocross begins in earnest next week (woohoo!), I figured it would be a good idea to get an accurate idea of what my training zones are in order to get the most out of my workouts. It had been a while since I last tested (ok, over a year) so I pulled out my copy of Joe’s book to brush up on the test. The recommended way to determine your training zones is actually by using a power meter, but since I don’t have $1,000+ to drop on one right now (I’ll gladly take a donation though ;)), that’s not an option. There is an alternative way to determine training zones by using your heart rate. It’s not quite as accurate as using a power meter but it will work for 99% of us out there. By performing a time trial in a controlled setting, we can determine what our lactate threshold is, and from there, determine our training zones.

“Why do we care about what our lactate threshold is?” or “What is our lactate threshold?” you ask? Excellent questions. Lactate acid is one of 3 limiters of endurance athletes (along with loss of carbohydrates/fuel and fatigue of muscles). As muscles work, they break down carbohydrates and lactic acid is produced as a byproduct. This seeps out of the muscles into the bloodstream and after combining with hydrogen, we end up with lactate. The body is able to remove lactate from the bloodstream and does so continually. As we exercise at low level of efforts, the body is able to remove the lactate as it is produced. However, at some higher level of intensity, we reach a point where more lactate is being produced than the body is able to remove from the bloodstream. This point is known as our lactate threshold. We also use this critical point as the marker from where our workouts go from aerobic (fairly easy and can be done for hours with appropriate fitness) to anaerobic (harder workout, labored breathing, can not continue at these intensities for hours).

With that knowledge, we can now go about to actually determining our lactate threshold. Using a heart rate monitor, you should perform a 30 minute time trial on your bike. It is ideal to do this on a flat road or a trainer/rollers. Begin the time trial, and after 10 minutes, hit the lap button on your watch. After 30 minutes have passed (20 minutes after hitting lap) stop your watch. Your average heart rate for those last 20 minutes of the time trial is a very good approximation of your lactate threshold. Now that you have this number, you can get very good estimations of your training zones (For those of you with the Triathlon Training Bible, you can use the table on page 42 to determine your zones). Again, it is worth pointing out that using a power meter would be more accurate for use of training zones, but for us common people, lactate threshold measurements will do!

I started the first 10 minutes of the ride in the 3rd chainring on my bike, and once I hit 10 minutes, hit the lap button and dropped down to the 4th chainring. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hold this for the length of the time trial, but figured I had to give it my all and give it a go. I was able to hold this fairly consistently with a cadence of 90 for the length of the ride. When 30 minutes rolled around, I was eager to stop as I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold that pace. After uploading my data to Garmin Connect (here it is) I found out that my average heart rate was 166bpm (with an average pace of 20.3mph). This gives me my training zones of:

         Zone 1 – 109-134
         Zone 2 – 135-148
         Zone 3 – 149-154
         Zone 4 – 155-165
         Zone 5A – 166-169
         Zone 5B – 170-175
         Zone 5C – 176-181

Once cyclocross training begins next week, I’ll use these numbers to ensure that I’m not going too easy or too hard for each workout. I plan on retesting every 4 weeks, during my “recovery” week, to see how my training is progressing and to adjust intensity levels for the next block of training. I might not post about each of my tests, but I’ll be updating the Performance Baselines section on the right with the latest numbers, and keeping a running history of all my baselines on my performance tests page.

One interesting thing will be to see how exactly my fitness does increase in these tests. I’m unsure whether I’ll see my average pace increase from 20.3mph, or my lactate threshold rise from 166bpm, or some combination of that. Once I’ve done a few and had time to study the numbers, I’ll be sure to let you know my thoughts on the issue! However, as with most things, I’m sure the results will vary by person so my findings might not be directly applicable to you!

I found myself waking up at 5:30am, which was quite a shock for my body as I still feel like waking up at 8:30am is waking up early. After grabbing a quick bite and showering, I headed out the door to walk to MARTA. I happen to live 100 meters from where the race ends right along Piedmont Park, and people were already staking out their spots to watch the finish. The train was quite crowded once I made it there, but everyone seemed quite excited. It was quite a site to see getting off the train, with masses of people in the street streaming towards the start.

I had never done this race before, and it was amazing to see so many people out at the start of a race. A giant American flag was draped over the starting line, and the first time group started as I walked up. As this was my first 10K in over 8 years, I did not qualify for any group, and got randomly assigned to Time Group 4, which had a 7:59AM start. I found a short line for the bathroom, and then made my way to my starting herd. We eventually were shuttled up to the start line and I found myself in the middle of the pack (which in this case meant there were nearly 2,000 people in front of me). I had heard rumors about how in the Peachtree it was so crowded you couldn’t run your pace and it was just a mad house. These rumors were running through my mind as I waited to start.

Soon enough, the flag dropped and we were off. New to the race this year was the fact that every runner got a ChronoTrack timing tag, which meant that every runner would have accurate timing results. I crossed over the mat, and true to the rumors, it was quite a cluster of people for the first bit. Much to my surprise, after less than 800m I found ample open space, and it would be like that until the last 400m!

A bit surprised that I was going to be able to choose my pace, I quickly tried to settle on the pace I wanted to run. I just let my body choose what pace felt comfortable and checked my watch to find myself running with a 10:00 pace, with my heart rate staying under 170. I decided just to monitor my heart rate and drop the pace to keep it below 170 to ensure that I finished the race. For the next few miles I just kept moving my legs and enjoyed running. I got to see a lot of different businesses along Peachtree Street that I had never seen before. At mile 3, I had to veer off to the side and make a quick stop for the bathroom. Soon after this was a hill known as ‘Cardiac Hill’, which is right by Piedmont Hospital for anyone familiar with Atlanta. I did notice the steep hill (as did my heart rate, since it jumped to 185) but it didn’t seem to phase my legs much at all, which was great.

Once I hit mile 4, I found my time was under 40:00. I started to get excited, as there was a chance I might be able to sneak in under 1 hour for the race. I knew that mile 4 would be the deciding factor as the entire mile was a gradual uphill. If I could keep a decent pace for that mile, I was confidence I could make it under an hour. I kept grinding, and made it up the hill with time to spare. At this point I was back in the area around which I live so I was much more familiar with the landmarks and knew exactly how much time was left. The last (and only) turn of the course is from Peachtree St. onto 10th Avenue, and that this point there is ~0.6 miles left. As soon as I made the turn I picked up the pace – looking at the data later I saw I was running between 7:00 and 8:00 minute miles that last bit – nothing to write home about, but quicker than I am used to! I was so busy trying to get to the finish line, and weaving around people, I forgot to pose where all the photographers were. Oops! 10th Street seemed to drag on forever, but soon the finish line was in site. My legs were getting tired, however, I was able to keep up the pace. I soon saw the official finish clock, and was coherent enough to tell that I was going to have an official time under an hour! Crossing the line, my watch confirmed this fact as well. I ended up with a time of 58:46. For any data junkies, you can view the entire race here.

I’m very pleased with how my race turned out. My goal for the race was to run the entire course, and finish. I figured I would have future races to try and worry about the time. In the back of my mind, I thought if everything went perfectly there was a tiny chance I could finish in under an hour. I happily made that expectation, even with about a minute stop halfway through for a bathroom break! The weather was absolutely perfect for the race at about 70 degrees. I hope to be back for next year, and with a few more 10K races under my belt, hopefully one of which will get me into one of the first couple of time groups!

Drop me a comment and say “Hi” if you haven’t recently, would love to hear from you!

I tried to get to sleep the night before at a reasonable hour, however, had issues falling to sleep. The last time I saw the clock it read 1:00AM, and my alarm was set for 6:00AM. On top of that, I woke up at least 4 times through the night – not a recipe for a great nights sleep! However, 6:00 rolled around and I was up and didn’t feel too horrible. After waking up and making it through a shower, I was ready to go. This race was in my area, so I was able to walk from my apartment to the start of the race – it was only 1.5 miles or so. I found the start area and sat around listening to my iPod about 15 minutes until it was go time.

Soon enough, it was time to start. They didn’t bother to have a loud speaker, so I just waited until I felt the surge of people take off. This time I started in the middle of the pack. (Yay, I learned a lesson!) I had checked out the course on Google Maps the night before, and knew the 1st mile was generally uphill, the second mile was mostly downhill, and the third was up and down. I intended to take it nice and easy the first mile, but we all know how plans can go in a race. For the first half mile or so I was so focused on avoiding the slower people in front of me and just trying to get out of the giant herd, that I didn’t notice I was going much too fast. I slowed it down a bit, but still came across the first mile marker in 9:40.

My goal had been to negative split the race, but after that first mile I was unsure. The course had started to go downhill after mile 1, so my heart rate was dropping back to a reasonable beat. That mile went pretty fast, however, it turns out I was 15 seconds slower on the second mile (that was downhill) than the first uphill mile. Ooops!

The third mile I was still relaxed and just running at a comfortable pace. I enjoyed the course as it was back in a nice shaded neighborhood and was just a fun little circuit. As I started getting closer to the end I slowly started to pick up the pace. I was feeling great so dropped into a full sprint 200m out. I could have picked it up sooner than that, but didn’t want to fall on my face right at the end. I crossed the line in 28:15 – a 1:30 improvement from my previous race. I was quite happy with this, even if I wasn’t able to negative split the race! If you are a data geek, you can see the data on Garmin Connect

The race was quite fun, and I was pleased with my improvement. It was good to see some hard evidence that the training I’ve been doing has paid off. I don’t have another 5K on my schedule right now, and the next race will be my 10K. I honestly have no time goal for that, I just wanted to go do a 10K, and I wanted to do Peachtree! I’ll worry about going for time with my second 10K whenver I pick it out.