Race Report: 2011 3M Austin Half Marathon

 

Preparation

A few friends from high school decided we should do a destination race and we decided on this one back in October.  After my last triathlon in early October I switched my training focus to CrossFit.  And in November started to bike about 2 days a week indoors. For some reason I couldn't really convince myself to do much running outside of CrossFit workouts.  So January came and I started doing the run training with my triathlon class, which consisted of 2 runs a week, usually less than 20 minutes.

I also ended up signing up for the Move, Lose, and Cruise challenge about 3 weeks ago.  I've been eating almost exclusively meat, eggs, veggies, beans, and water with one cheat day a week.  I didn't change my diet at all for the week of the race (no carb loading). I've also cut out most caffeine in hopes of making myself more sensitive to it on race day

Pre Race

I got about 5 hours of sleep and had some water, a gulp of Gatorade, and about 3 cups of coffee (since I forgot my caffeine pills).  We got to the start and it was still dark but surprisingly warm (55 degrees?), foggy, and humid.  It didn't ever really rain, but there was definitely some mist through the first half of the race.

The Race

One of the biggest downsides of not doing any traditional run training for this race was that I had no idea what pace to target. So I started with the 1:30 group and told myself to stick with them until about 6 or 7 miles and if I felt good to go ahead then and chase my PR of 1:27:40. But I didn't listen. Around mile 2 I found myself in front of the group after the aid station and began to pull away from them slowly.  When I had run my PR, I ran just under 7 min/mile for the first 9 miles then picked it up for the last 4 to around 6:15 min/mile.  So my new plan was to run around 6:40 until mile 9, then pick it up to 6:30, then try for under 6:20 for the last 3 miles.  In addition to wearing my Garmin 305 telling me my HR and pace, I also had my iPhone in a little belt thingy with RunKeeper running. Every 5 minutes it would tell me my time, avg pace, and distance.  But the really cool feature is that it was constantly updating the website so anybody up in Reno at 4:45 could watch my progress. 

The course was pretty flat with a fair share of downhill. Nothing so steep that you'd have to brake coming down, but I could really feel the downhill miles in my legs towards the end and especially after the race. The course was easy to follow, well marked and after the first 400M, crowds weren't an issue even though there were 6,000 people running.  The water stations looked well stocked and laid out well, although I never grabbed any water or Gatorade. It was fun to have so many spectators along the course.  It seemed like they lined most of the streets and would tell you that you were "lookin' good" even if that wasn't the case. 

Around mile 8 my plan started to fall apart.  People started passing me. I kept thinking more and more about how far I had left to go.  I'd try to pick up my pace as someone would pass me and only be able to stay with them for a short time.  This is when I realized my shot at a PR had slipped away.  My new focus was to stave off the 1:30 group and finish under 1:30.  A downhill mile around mile 10 gave me some hope but shortly after, I began to hear the louder cheers behind me that I knew were associated with that 1:30 group.  And sure enough, the group (although much smaller than the last time I saw them) caught me and steadily pulled away.  The last 2 miles were just about getting to the finish line.  I repeatedly tried to speed up, but I had no speed left.  I'll attribute this to starting too fast (could I have finished under 1:30 if I had stuck with the group?) and lack of and long runs.  I finally finished in just over 1:31. My legs were in immediate pain and running was not happening for me for the rest of the day.  

Overall, I had a fun race and I'm happy with my time.  And my friends all finished, despite their lack of preparation as well.  I can't wait for our next destination race and for this early, but likely abbreviated, triathlon season. I'm also excited about endurance training in combination with CrossFit.  While I'm not at my very fastest, I feel like there is real potential to become a fast, competitive age group triathlete doing what I'm doing with the Triathlon class at CrossFit Initiative. I'm pleased with the diet, too, which is pretty much the slow carb diet from Tim Ferriss', "The 4-hour body". Training and racing without tons of carbs seems to work well, at least for this distance. I didn't have any stomach issues the entire race, and although I haven't done any testing, i did read, "Metabolic Efficiency Training" and tried to apply some of the concepts in that book to my training. It makes sense to me that training your body to burn stored calories rather than relying on food you're ingesting during or immediately before the race.  

Now we're off to enjoy our last night in Austin and the rest of my cheat day.

 

Read more!

Creating a video podcast for free

With all the tools and integrations to get video online (youTube, mobileMe, Posterous), you’d think that it would be pretty straightforward to create a video podcast. It took me a little while to figure it all out. Here’s how I did it.

1.       Create a Posterous account

2.       Email your movie to posterous.  This is cool because you can set it up to go to lots of services at once.  So by sending it to posterous, it could get submitted to youtube, vimeo, and be hosted as a .mov for iphone and podcasting. They use amazon storage to store the movie so hosting is free (at least up to 1GB right now). 

3.       Use Podcast blaster to create an xml file with the new episode information. It will keep your information so adding episodes is easy. I still think it could auto populate the length and duration fields, but oh well.  When you get to the episode url, go to your posterous page, find the download link for the .mov file and use that URL.

4.       Upload the XML file to your website. I hosted it at Google docs, which seems to work ok. I was worried about google docs being blocked on  some corporate intranets but I think it should be fine as long as iTunes can access the file

5.        Submit a Podcast to iTunes. Use the URL to the xml file you just uploaded. You only need to do this step once. After iTunes approves it, your podcast can be found iTunes. iTunes checks the xml file about once a day for new content.

Some additional notes:

·         If you just want to create an audio podcast, you can skip steps 3 and 4 and just submit your rss for your posterous blog (http://yourname.posterous.com/rss) to iTunes. Posterous supports podcast formatting of your rss with audio but for some reason not video.

·         There are many options for what format your video could be in. I didn’t test extensively with posterous to see if it always hosts videos in a podcast compatible format.

·         Movie size will likely be limited by your email provider.  Posterous limits you to movies of 100MB if you post by web. If your movies are bigger than that, you may have to find another hosting solution.

Here’s the one I created: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/crossfit-initiative/id402341737

Read more!

Shooting and publishing videos from your iPhone 4

We've been shooting most of the videos for the blog using a Sony video camera at the gym.  It's ideal to use since you can zoom and it is probably more steady, especially if you have a tripod. But a lot of us have an iPhone 4 with us almost all the time that do a fine job of shooting nice video.

The quick and dirty method

1. Create a youtube account if you don’t already have one.
2. film the video (landscape orientation is preferable )
3. Go to your camera roll. press the square button with the arrow,

1. Tap the movie and press the “Share” button and select “Send to YouTube”

   

This should work for most movies, especially if you narrate anything you want the viewer to know about.  But sometimes you want to add some title screens with text, audio, or some nice transitions. 

How to make your movie a little prettier

1.    Get iMovie from the app store ($4.99)

2.    Save the image and movie from this email to your phone if you are filming for CrossFit Initiative. Otherwise, find some images or clips of your logo (or whatever) that you want to use to dress up your movie and save them to your phone.

3.    Film your movie.

Create your project in iMovie

·         Go to iMovie and create a new project.

·         Set the Theme. You’ll have the option to set this when your project opens. If you want to change it later, touch the sprocket icon at the beginning of the timeline.

     

·         Add a title screen - If you want to start the movie with a Title screen where you can enter text, you need to add a movie. That is what the attached movie is for.  You could just apply the title screen to your whole movie, but that is probably not what you want. So add a short clip like the one attached.

Creating a title screen from an image

1.    Create a new project and add an image.

2.    Set the duration.  You’ll want it to be long enough to allow for the title to be read. Probably around 3-10 seconds. Set the duration by dragging the end of the clip when it is selected (has a yellow border)

3.    Optional: Animate it

a.    go to the beginning of the clip, set the position by using your finger to move the image, then go to the end of the clip and set the position again. Now it will animate between the two positions you set.

4.    Optional: Add audio

5.    Export the movie. I film in high quality so I export this movie in high quality.

6.    Create a new project and add the new movie to the project.

7.    Double tap the clip in the timeline. Set the Title style. Which one you use will depend on the Theme you choose. Touch the text area on the clip to edit it.

        

Adding your movie(s)

·         Tap the “add content” button and select your movie. If you want to trim it, touch it and then drag the yellow handles on either end. If you have lots of cutting and trimming to do, you’ll be better off just uploading it to a computer and editing it there as trimming on the iphone is pretty imprecise and takes a long time to do.

·         Optional: set the transition type

o   Double click the transition square between clips. You’ll get a menu allowing you to choose what type of transition you like. Default is cross dissolve.

·         Optional: add audio

o   You can add audio, but it is only applied to the entire project.  If you want to apply audio to just certain clips, the workaround is to create a separate project for that clip, add the audio, and export that project. Now, when you add that clip into your project, it will have the audio you want without having to apply audio to the entire project

·         Add a closing title screen. Do this the same way you created the intro title screen.

Publish

·         Go to the Projects page and tap the share button

·         Choose your export size. This will save it to your camera roll

·         Preview your video and if everything looks good, select it and share it on YouTube.

The first time you do this, it might take a while. But once you have a project set up with intro and title clips you like, sprucing up movies should be pretty quick. Get creative! I can’t wait to see what interesting things you’ll shoot. If you’re looking for ideas, give the 2-minute Double under challenge a shot.

Ray and Rob doing Double Unders - An example of a video that I filmed, edited, and published all from my phone. I don’t think it’s going to win any Grammys but it might win a Dummy.

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0536.MOV (762 KB)

Read more!

Increasing likes for free on a CrossFit site

I'm looking at our Facebook page, and noticing that we've been pretty stagnant lately as far as fan growth goes so I wrote down these ideas that I think might help us reach more people without spending money. I already know we can basically buy fans at $0.50-$1.00 each using Facebook ads.

Free ways to get more fans.

1. Post the workout (or maybe just a video) each day and pose a question with it. Why? comments and likes increase post quality.  Posts with higher post quality are more likely to show up in people's news feeds and be seen by their friends. Also, Facebook may suggest the page directly to friends of people who like us.
2. Tag other pages, people, and businesses in wall posts.  For example, " [Dave] from [business] setting a deadlift PR today". To tag people or pages, make sure you are friends with them or like their page, then type @ followed by their name (it will autofill and allow you to choose the right person or page). Why? This will make your post show up on their wall. So people that visit the X facebook page will see the post and be able to click right through to our page. Think of businesses that have a lot of traffic and see if you can find a creative way to mention them. 
3. Take pictures/videos during a workout and tag people in them. Why? These will show up on their wall, exposing their friends to us.
4. Create events in Facebook. For any event we are having at the gym, create an event for it. Post this event on other relevant pages, inviting them. Invite all fans or send all fans an update. Why? as people RSVP, it will show up on people's wall that they are attending an event. It may also show up in their friends news feed. Make sure any updates you send to all fans are relevant and not too frequent. If people feel like they are being spammed, you'll quickly lose fans. 
5. Invite friends to become fans. You may have done this when you created your page but it doesn't hurt to go through you friends list once in a while and send invites to your new friends. Why? Once they are fans, they are more likely to see your posts.

Free ways to get more traffic to your website

1. Write interesting articles and post interesting videos. Why? People will share things they find really useful or entertaining. 
2. Encourage people to sign up for the daily emails (burn your feed using feedburner to create daily email digests).  Why?  the more people that are subscribed the more people will know about the current events at the gym. 
3. Pose questions in the blog encouraging feedback. Why? People will spend more time on our site
4. Add links to other sites, especially blogs. Why? This will create a backlink on their blog. These usually show up in or around the comments on their site and provide a link back to your site.
5. Post interesting comments on the main site and on other blogs. Why? When you post, there is almost always a place to enter your website.  If people read your comments and think you are interesting, they'll likely click through to your site.

It sometimes seems like a popularity contest with no real objective to drive fan and page view numbers up. But if you believe you have a product or information that can truly help people, I think it makes sense to take some of these steps to get your message out. We'll see if they work. We are at 269 fans right now. 

Comments welcome.

Read more!

Stupid human tricks

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0473.MOV (332 KB)

As promised after Barbells for Boobs

Read more!

Leila's new trick

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0460.MOV (1289 KB)

Sent from my iPhone

Read more!

Lightning

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0454.MOV (1013 KB)

Sent from my iPhone

Read more!

Alexander Fire

I was at work late last night and when I left the Alexander fire was pretty visible from the IGT parking lot. Unfortunately, all I had with me was my iPhone so the pics are not that remarkable. I walked up the trail that we run up from IGT just off of Double R to get pretty close to the fire. The wind was blowing Southeast so the fire wasn't moving toward me and I could barely smell the smoke.  I hung out there for a little while and called a few people using FaceTime (iPhone video calling) to show them the flames.  Apparently the fire didn't cause and structural damage and just burned a hill of sagebrush that had burned just a few years ago. 

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0405.MOV (2028 KB)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Read more!

2009 Christmas Letter

 

The Weber's 2009 Adventures   Together Megan and Reid just celebrated their 3rd wedding anniversary and decided it was finally time for a yearly letter to let everyone know what they've been up to. In April we traveled to New Orleans for Reid to race in an Ironman 70.3. We got to see Bourbon Street and took a tour of the rebirth of the town after hurricane Katrina. We toured Italy in May. Megan and Mary toured the South part and then met Reid in Rome. Reid loved Cinque Terre, a strip of five towns lined on cliffs along the sea. Megan fell in love with the beautiful Duomo and sights in Florence and Civita. Not to mention Venice, the most breathtaking and interesting city Megan has ever been to. We also traveled to Switzerland where we biked up the mountains to get a better view of the glacier and went on a paraglide ride. In June we took a camping and hiking trip to Yosemite National Park. In July we traveled to Denver for the Mile High Music Festival with Janet and Holly. In September we made the trip out to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man where we camped with friends and met up with Reid's second cousin from South Dakota. Lately we have been working hard to train our dogs, Leila and Baby, attending obedience classes with them.
Reid * Finished his first Ironman in Coeur d'Alene. Swim 2.4 miles, Bike 112 miles, and Run 26.2 miles. He finished it in 11 hours 18 minutes. * Crossfit level 1 Certification in Portland and Crossfit Running and Endurance certification. *Started teaching and training Crossfit at Crossfit Initiative. * Qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2008 so we will be heading to Boston in April of 2010. *Celebrated 7th year at IGT	Megan *Moved to the Pediatric Emergency Room from the main Emergency department. *Employee of the Month at Renown. *Got elected to 2010 Emergency Nurses Association Injury Prevention Chair. *Traveled to Las Vegas to see Britney Spears with Ashley and good friends. *Took a ride in a hot air balloon for the first time. *Got a new camera and has been busy all year shooting pictures. Hoping to get good enough to take family portraits. Testing her skills on family J
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2010. Love, Reid and Megan Weber

Read more!

Pyramid Lake Triathlon 2009 race report

A warm day with a slight breeze made for good conditions for the race this morning. Megan's parents, my parents, Megan and Leila all came out to watch and cheer. I was little nervous about my ankle after spraining it a few weeks ago wakeboarding and having twisted it last year running into the water. I felt good on the swim and came in around 15th I think. I managed to cover myself in sand getting my wetsuit off but had a quick transition. Some day I'll actually ride my bike before the race. Luckily there were no mechanical issues like at Graeagle. But my powertap was only displaying speed. With no power info I just focused on a high cadence and trying to keep the guys in front of me in sight. I passed a few people right out of transition then stayed about 30 seconds behind Mike Scarborough for most of the ride. I think I had an aero advantage so I'd gain a little on the flats. Behind me, Brian Casey was gaining on me and came in just seconds behind me off the bike. He had a quick transition and beat me out to the run by a few seconds so I started in 9th about 15 seconds behind Mike and another guy. I've had dissapointing runs here the last 2 years and this ended up no different. I felt pretty good the first half mile and passed Brian with the next guy about 20 seconds ahead of me. But Brian passed me back before the turnaround and really made me fight to get back to 7th. I still had hopes of running down 6th place on the last 3/4 of a mile but he pretty much matched my pace the rest of the run. I ended up just being lucky enough to hold off Brian by 6 seconds, finishing in 1:11:25, almost the same time as last year. Besides the course, the thing that makes this race really cool is knowing so many people racing and cheering for you. Can't wait to do it again next year. It felt great to swim in the lake with Megan and Leila afterwards. It was cool to see Ryan Evans handing out copies of the new issue of Active Reno with my article about my Ironman race in it, too. I'm excited about the publication and how their website will hopefully help the active crowd in Reno grow. No race pics yet so a pic of the blisters on my foot is all you get

Read more!

Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2009 race report

After failing to sign up in time for the Boston Marathon this year, I figured I'd just sign up for Ironman Coeur d'Alene instead back in the winter.  I had big plans of perfect training plans where I'd be faster than ever on the swim, bike and run.  Those plans faded at first slowly as I started to train more Crossfit than any of those sports then quickly when we booked a 3 week trip to Italy in May and I started to focus solely on running for the Reno Tahoe Odyssey.  So while I was confident I could finish an Ironman, I had no idea how long it would take me.  It ended up being one of my favorite races and in a time I'm happy with:  11:18.

Here's my (long) race report.
Pre race:
Got up just after 4AM. Had ¾ yam, 1 bottle of Ensure. 20 min before the race I had raspberry hammer gel, 3 endurolyte tabs and Pre-race drink. It was light out and about 50 degrees when we arrived at the beach, which was a little cold for me in shorts and a t-shirt.

Swim: After keeping my warmup clothes on as long as possible and dropping them off in transition with only 20 minutes to go until the cannon, I started to worry that I might not make it to the beach in time. We all had to go over a timing mat to get on the beach and the line was long and moving pretty slowly.  But I made it with about 3 minutes to spare. I lined up close to the water, 10 feet behind the starting row and with about 40 feet of people lined up behind me.The cannon went off and we all shuffled into the water.The first few minutes were very crowded with people swimming over me and me swimming over others. The water felt great, not so cold that it stung my face but cool enough so that I didn’t overheat in my full length wetsuit. Swimming out was against a steady wind and waves big enough to feel being moved up and down. But the waves on the way back to shore felt big enough to body surf on. I’d find myself swimming harder to catch them. I came out of the water in 804^th place (58^th in my division).



My transition was pretty slow.I probably wasted time having sunscreen put on me and putting on gloves.I dropped one in the changing tent and ran back to get it.

Bike: After riding out and seeing Megan cheering for me, I had to stop about 20 yards out of transition to put on my watch after realizing that I would certainly crash trying to put it on while riding. I felt really excited and fresh starting the bike. Driving the course beforehand gave me an idea of what to look forward to. My favorite part of the course was probably the first 14 miles along the shoreline. There were flat sections broken up with enough hills so I could coast or change position often.

The middle section of the loop (out near Hayden lake) was pretty and definitely seemed hillier on the second loop. There were several hills where standing in my smallest gear felt like the only way up the hill. I finished the first of two laps in a time of around 2:47 (avg watts: 185), meaning that if I did the same speed for the second loop, I’d come in with a bike split of 5:34.  I did stop for some Pringles at my special needs bag around mile 70 and to go to the bathroom around mile 80. Besides some fatigue in my legs, my bike position contributed a lot to me slowing down on the second lap. At the beginning of the lap, my neck started to hurt in aero, but by the end, I could barely hold the position for 15 seconds at a time. This was no fun for the last 10 miles, which, unlike the earlier sections that are broken up with hills to sit up on, were nearly all flat or downhill. It felt like the wind had picked up a bit, too, making aero position even more important. I nearly finished my 2 bottles of perpetuem (1000 calories each), 64 oz Gatorade, 32 oz of water, about 10 endurolyte salt tabs, and a bite of a zone bar on the bike. Though my neck hurt, my legs felt fresh coming into T2. My bike time was 5:48, moving up to 502 overall (48 in my division).

And if you’re really bored, my power file.  Probably could have paced a little better but I hit 201 watts for my normalized power, which was right where I was trying to be.

Run: Just a mile into the run I heard commotion behind me, which I soon found out was Kate Major, in 2^nd place, beginning her second lap, she soon caught up to me and then passed me.  Although my plan was to run 9:00/mile at least until the stiffness from the bike ride had worn off, I found myself running an 8:25/mile pace after 3 miles. 
The run course was pretty, with most of it being along the water.  I even found myself not realizing I had run up a hill because of all the motivational signs posted in the grass next to the trail.  There were plenty of aid stations (nearly every mile, I think) so I wouldn’t have needed my fuel belt but it drank nearly all the 16 oz of gu20 and 16 oz of Perpetuem.  I had one gu at the beginning of the run, but that combined with all the Perpetuem on the bike had me feeling really full.  The number of people on the course really helped make it go by quickly.  From the aid stations workers to other runners to people sitting on their lawn looking up your hometown and age to shout it out as you ran by, so many people were supportive. I hadn’t seen Nate all day and was hoping he was having a better race than me and would see him on the way out to the turn around. I finally saw him on my way back into town about 4 miles behind me. He looked pretty good but had obviously had some struggles to be that far behind me. It was great to see Megan and Greta as I was running back out of town at the beginning my second loop. They later told me I looked pretty bad at that point, which makes sense because I really started to slow down. I dropped from sub 9 minute miles to 10 minute miles around mile 15. My legs were starting to feel really fatigued. Up until this point I had really been comfortable racing at this pace and had even done the calculations for how fast I’d have to run to go under 11 hours. But I now knew I would clearly finish but it looked like the last 10 miles could easily take me 2 hours. Not wanting to just shuffle along slower and slower, I started to run for 4 minutes and walk for 1. The first mile I did this felt slow. The walk breaks didn’t seem long enough and 4 minutes of running felt like forever. But after a few miles I started getting faster. Some people claim to hallucinate on long runs, but I felt fine, even though you probably won’t believe me when I tell you I saw Spiderman on a bike. And one other time lying down in the grass. I kept up the run/walk pattern until I had about a mile left and knew I had plenty of adrenaline to run in. My pace for the last 5 miles averaged around a 9:15 pace and I sped up to a 7:30/mile pace for the last half mile. Running down Sherman to the finish had me filled with emotions. It had started to rain and was getting cold on an otherwise perfect day for racing. The streets were lined with a cheering crowd that got louder as I got closer to the finish line. I struggled to hold a smile on my face because I could feel tears coming on as I smiled. And as excited as I was to be finishing, I really tried to take it all in and lock in the feeling of racing in an Ironman, not knowing when I’ll ever do one again and enjoying my first one so much. The downhill finish could have been dangerous had it not been for the line of volunteers with blankets ready to catch athletes as they flew across the line.


I finished in 11:18:32, 421 overall and 39th in M25-29.
After I finished and was caught, I was held tightly and walked to the massage tent, being handed off to at least 4 more people, each gripping me just as tight, before I got a massage. I spent another 10 minutes in there getting warmed up with some soup broth after getting the chills. It had really started to rain hard by the time I left the tent and went to grab pizza and find Megan to give her a big hug and kiss. It really meant a lot to have her there supporting me. We went back to the stands to cheer people on and watch for Nate to finish. He finished and then proceeded to get lost getting back to the car after picking up our gear bags. Megan finally found him leaning against a parking pole back by the finish line staring at the ground waiting in place like a lost child.


It was tough to get to sleep that night with just a dull aching in my legs, but it felt like the same amount of fatigue as a marathon. I’m thankful for no injuries aside from a few rub marks from the timing chip and my tri suit. Jeannie, Cliff and John were great hosts, picking us up, giving us a place to stay with lots of food and letting us use a car. We couldn’t have asked for any better accommodations.
All pictures

Read more!

Six things you might not know about me

I saw this on another blog (Greg's) I read so I thought I'd give it a shot. 

1. I weighed 9 lb, 15 oz when I was born.
2. I have my pilot's license.  My parent's gave me a flight training package for high school graduation.  I flew over 50 hours the summer of 1999 and even took my wife, Megan, on a flight at night 4 years before we started dating.  She got sick on the flight.
   
3. I can (or ustacould) do flips on a trampoline, diving board, wakeboard, snowboard, off a wall, standing and while running forward.  With some practice I mightcould again.
   
4. I haven't drank since at least Sept 3, 2008 (80+ days)
5. My grandpa went to the inauguration of LBJ.  I just learned this from family in town for Thanksgiving.  I guess he rode from Minnesota to DC on a bus with a bunch of farmers
   
6. I can cross my eyes to see stereo 3D images

 

Read more!

Moab

We went to Moab in early September for some great mountain biking. Just finally got the pictures up and found this new flickr viewer so I thought I'd post them.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
And here are some pics from Burning Man 2008 while we're at it.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Read more!

Mt Tallac

Megan, Nate, Greta and I hiked Mt Tallac a few weekends ago. It was a beautiful hike made especially pretty by the overcast sky and colorful sunset.

It was cold at the top but surprisingly comfortable for the rest of the hike.

And after it got dark, the nearly full moon reflected off the snow enough to make the hike down pretty easy albeit a bit slower.

More Pictures
Read more!

XTERRA USA Championships - Incline Village, NV

My theme song for this morning's race is Katy Perry's new song Hot n Cold  Yesterday was rainy and windy enough for XTERRA Nevada to be turned into a duathlon by swapping the swim for a 1.25 mile swim.  This morning was calm and clear, but quite cold.  Sounds silly but I was too chilly to do much of a warmup.  The water was actually pretty comfortable for the swim although my feet went numb and never warmed up until after the bike.  I tried to draft several swimmers but didn't have much luck so I was by myself for most of the swim.  T1 was probably my longest ever.  I put knee warmers, socks, booties, long sleeve jersey, glasses, gloves (huge ones) and my forerunner on after I spent at least a minute trying to get all the sand out from between my toes.  I felt great on the bike up Tunnel Creek and along the Flume Trail.  Hobart road was ok and I really started to slow on the last few climbs before the switchbacks. I quickly heated up on the climbs with all my gear.  I would have probably been fine with just my tri kit, but I got cold on the downhils and my feet never warmed up even with the huge neoprene booties.  Megan and Nate showed up to cheer me on which was great and motivating.  By the time I got to the run, the first pros had finished and the temp was perfect for running.  The running trail wound around Incline with a gentle ups and downs with several creek crossings.  I finished in 3:32, which I was happy with for my forth race in three weekends.  I'm ready to have a weekend off before Halfmax in two weeks.  I think I'm a bit over raced and under trained.
UPDATE:
Swim:

Bike:

Run:

Read more!

Virtual Mile

So last night I went to the Damonte Ranch High School track where I attempted running a few fast miles.  This coincided with a workout I did last year at about the same number of weeks out from my marathon so I figured it would be a good indicator to see if I'm on track to be in as good or better shape for the CIM.  Since I ran 3:14 at Bizz Johnson, I'd like to be in better shape this year to break at least 3:10 if not 3:00 at CIM in December. 
So I ran the first mile in 5:58, the second in 6:24 and the third in 5:50.  It felt pretty good but I was dissappointed to see that last year I ran 5:56, 5:48, 5:41. 
Good luck to Reid tomorrow in breaking the 5:00 mile!
Read more!

virtual mile

Another Reid is attempting to run a mile in under 5:00 this week. I've done that once at the Firecracker Mile 2007 in Truckee, CA (4:40). To join in the fun, I'll try for a fast mile on Thursday during my regular workout, although it won't be near 5:00.

Get this widget!

Read more!

Paragliding off of Duck Hill

I had my first real paraglide flight on Saturday.  I flew off Duck hill in Washoe Valley around 11AM and flew for about 3 minutes to the LZ across East Lake Blvd. The picture is of Aaron flying earlier in the morning.  After a few flights at Mound House training hill, Ray, our instructor, gave me the ok to fly at Duck so we headed over there in time for Aaron and I to each get a flight. 
Read more!

XTERRA Ogden

I raced in my first XTERRA regional championship last weekend at Snowbasin, Utah. I set out this season to qualify for the XTERRA National Championship in Incline Village this Fall, which requires earning enough points in 3 races to be in the top 8 in my age group (25-29) and region (South West).
Swim:

Wetsuits were prohibitted for the pros since the water was 71, but since I freeze easier than I overheat I decided to wear my Orca S1. It was cool to line up right behind the pros. I had dreams of going out fast to get right on the feet of one of them that were quickly shattered at the horn for the mass start blew and there were suddenly tons of people on all sides of me. The way everyone fanned out along the beach at the start and then all headed straight for the first bouy made for lots of collisions. I was constantly bumping into people well into the second lap.
Bike:

Even though I'm much more of a climber than a downhiller, I was a little nervous about all the climbing on the bike. But I really enjoyed the bike course. The climb to the base of snowbasin was long but not all that steep (especially compared to the initial climb for XTERRA Tahoe City) and I was able to pass quite a few people until I finally settled behind a kid in the 15-19 age group. Looking back on it, I probably should have passed him and picked it up a bit, but at the time I felt like he was riding a good pace and I didn't want to bonk like I did in Tahoe City. After a few brutal sections at the ski resort, there was a long fun section of mostly downhill.
Run:

I chugged a bottle of Perpetuem and some gatorade at T2. Leaving transition my stomach felt too full but I wanted to make sure I had enough fuel for the 10k run with over 1000ft of climbing. After the first hill I got into a pretty good rythm and even tried to stay with a few female pros as they came flying by. As they slowly pulled away I tried to keep up a strong pace and prepare for the climb ahead. My watch said 6700 and I remember reading or hearing that the run went all the way up to 7600ft. I passed one guy around mile 2 who said, "Hey, you passed me at the same spot in Tahoe City". When the trail switched to fire road and started to gently climb I figured we this must be the beginning of the big climb. To my surprise I got to a spot where my watch said 7000ft just as one of the volunteers notified me that it was all downhill the rest of the way. Sure enough, I was at the finish line in several minutes with my watch reading 4.74 miles. It was a welcome surprise at the time but I probably would have raced better had I known ahead of time.
I quickly said hi to a few friends and then headed back to Nephi, UT for Megan's grandma's 80th birthday party.
I may have moved up to 7th place in points for my division, but I doubt that will hold up until Oct 5th. Standings
Read more!

It was Fun. It was Real. It was really fun.

When I heard that the Donner Triathlon had been canceled for this year. I was left scrambling to make weekend plans. The Death Ride and Downieville Classic mountain bike race were both on Saturday. But I decided to skip both of those and head down for a weekend full of triathlons in Ranch Seco, CA. Nate and I raced Tri for Fun on Saturday and Tri For Real on Sunday. Although we were among only a few to race both days I finished 2nd and he finished 4th in the 25-29 age group each day.
Read more!