made it out to philly yesterday afternoon. Met mike and we rode out for packet pick up. On the way out, my crank was making some noise, I thought it was my shoe, but it’s not. I gotta check it out.

woke up super early this morning and drove out, racked the bikes and realized that neither of us ate breakfast. marathon bars and clif bloks on the bus over to the swim start. it was cold outside (for june) and the water temp was 75. it felt good to get in the water because it was warmer than the air. the swim felt good, water seemed clean, I was undertrained but it felt OK. 5 minute gaps between waves. We were 3rd, I was enveloped by green caps (women 30-34?) and light blue (next men’s wave?) but it could have been much worse. I think my swim time was like 40 min. Not bad for undertraining.

transition was hilarious, since we rolled up kinda late, I couldn’t get my stuff all layed out properly. right before I got on the bike, I realized that I had put on one bike shoe and one running shoe. ooops. had to switch that.

I felt strong on the ride. I averaged between 18 and 19 mph. at the end I realized that I maybe could have gone faster, but I was still pretty pleased. I have to work on my descents and high speed turns because I still sketch out a little bit on both of them. couse was hilly but way fun.

T2 was cool. jen, cherokee, and holden were there so I got a little smooch and some encouragement.

the 1st 2 miles of the run were HORRIBLE. flat course, no problem. but my shins were on fire. I was slow. real slow. REAL slow. everyone and their mother passed me. but anytime I saw someone in my age group pass me, I still felt OK, because it meant that I took them on the bike. It helps that I can feel good about something even when I’m sucking really bad at something else. 3 miles in, I found my groove. it was a slow groove but a comfortable one. 5 miles in, I made a CRITICAL mistake. I was really thirsty. at the water station I went for 1 water and TWO count ‘em TWO gatorades. then came the cramp full stomach yuck feeling. I was over it by the time I hit mile six. Usually, I think I know where the finish line is, but it’s really much further away. I get close and start to turn it up a little bit, but then fizzle out before I hit the actual line. This time, it totally came out of nowhere. I was able to run it in a little harder and I felt good at the end (in spite of how slow I was). THe final time on the clock was 3:30. I’m pretty sure our start was 10 minutes after the initial go so that gives me a time of 3:20.

pittsburgh time was 3:32.
Naylors Beach was 3:47

any way you slice it, I came out ahead. I blame the orbea. even if my time was worse, it would have been a good day. the swim was nice, ride was challenging but fun, run was beautiful (even if it did involve running) and flat. I had low expectations of this race, but in the end, it was pretty damn cool.

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A history of every trip I have ever taken to Richmond

1. played a show with the stratford mercenaries on a wednesday night. worked the next day. felt like hell.

2. played a show at the end of tour at some punk house. We played pretty well as I remember. richmond rubbed me as a very depressing city though.

3. helped mike move. decided to take a run around the bases of a muddy baseball field, slipped, fell, got COVERED in mud head to toe. sandy rocky mud. It was very uncomfortable. I ended up in a store trying to buy shorts after close. I actually said, please sell me some shorts. It’s an emergency.

4. xterra triathon 2006. I realized that richmond is in fact a nice, charming city, stayed with jason and allison in their nice apt. did the triathlon. it nearly killed me, but I enjoyed it.

5. feb 2007. played a show in richmond, we played horribly, there were a billion people there, it was a crazy night. this is the evening that mike swore off playing after/while drinking.

6. richmond xterra triathon 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

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Before this weekend, I had pretty much only seen the crappy parts of richmond. But it’s really not so bad at all. I guess that’s the difference between going to a city for a huge corporate sponsored sporting event and going to play a show in a squat where a bunch of crust punks live.

we got there at about 3pm and went straight to registration. I thought about pre-riding the race course, but decided against it. If I did, I probably would have been more freaked out. registered quick and drove around the really pretty downtown area of Richmond. We then rolled out to see Jason and Allison (who live in a really cute part of the city also) lots of catching up on what we have been up to and talking about houses (they just bought one, yay them!) DInner and some margaritas and bedtime for the racer.

I got up at six this morning and left for the race. I still really didn’t know what to expect.

Read the rest of this entry »

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66 days until the columbia triathlon. I have to redeem my DNF from last year.

my running has been sporadic but my 45 minute run the other day was only 3.5 miles
I swam for the first time in months today, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
I’ve been riding the mountain bike everywhere and I am switching the surly over to a geared bike again this week.
I’m tipping the scale at a 174 which will make my wetsuit extra snug.
my parents might also be out for the tri, so I really can’t suck at this one

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well. I really want to do the escape from fort delaware triathlon next year but it’s $110. that’s ridiculous.

I’m already registered for columbia. I kinda want to plan my race calendar for next year (keeping in mind that the lion’s share of july should be spent in franc climbing rocks and watching someone other than lance with the tour).

I’ve been checking the race calendars for next year and I am constantly torn between things that seem cool and things that are convenient. The only one that I am committed to next year is the columbia, I’m thinking about signing up for the richmond sprint distance x-terra (get my feet wet with that before I sign up for the olympic one). I will probably have a second single speed built up in case anyone (hint hint mike) is into doing that one with me. but past that, I’m really not sure.

I don’t know if I want to repeat Naylor’s Beach. I figure I’ll plan to do Dewey again just to see if I can do it even SLOWER this year.

but for anyone who is interested(MIKE), here is a list of races that I’m thinking about doing next year (all pulled from www.trifind.com)
Read the rest of this entry »

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so at these triathlon deals.. they have photographers… and so you know I did my best to make sure the pics were of me at my best.

im eagerly awaiting the pics of jim w/ a flask

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so this weekend i did something that the old me never thought he could possibly do. By the old me I mean the body for which I have inhabbited my entire life. Sure I played organized sports as a kid, my last memerable attempts being middle school through freshman / sophmore years of high school playing lacorsse. Even then I decided that due to my lack of any kind of sustanable endurance I played goallie. This weekend I completed my first sprint triathlon, at dewey beach.

so here is my play by play

Pre: we all wake up at half past but, consume some bagels and penut butter, and head out. Im getting pretty freaked out but more excited than anything else… we get there in just enough time to get stuff ste up and jump in the water a bit.

Swim: Me being in the first timers wave, I ended up being in the last set of people to start. Now this is good and bad. Good because I got to watch a bunch of people go ahead of me, and take it all in. Bad because I had to wait over a half hour after jim to start. Which meant I stretched for a half hour and pissed on some sand dunes. When we finally got in the water I was so excited that I bolted past the first marker, and kept swimming out to sea. A life guard on a kayack asked If I was planning on swimming to NJ. As a consequence when I got to the second marker, I ended up having to swim id say 4 minutes into shore just to reach it. Basicly I think I swam in a big half circle as opposed to a straight line. As I swam in, I was greated w/ cherkoee, jen, holden, and my family cheering on. As well as my calves deciding not to work. Eventually they followed my directions and allowed me to run up to the transition area. My brother in law keith followed me screaming for me to go faster. Now I did this last year to him, and I know I deserved it, but man that sucked.

t1: I felt pretty ok, and reasonably fast in and out.

Bike: this is where I probably felt the best. I felt pretty fast, and past about 10 people, which after my long ass swim it made me feel much better. The ride in general felt short, and quick, and as that its straight pretty uneventful.

t2: jim followed me into trainsition screaming at me, and chasing me with ice cream.

Run: I ran out of transition and by the time I reached the road, I felt kind of weak. I had been looking at my run as one of my strong points, not because im fast or nothing, but because ive been doing it the longest. Well after a 1/2 mile swim and 16 mile bike ride… my body sure didnt feel confident. I just pushed through it and around the turn around point my brain told my body to shut the hell up, and I started to pick up the pace a bit. I didnt really feel good about the run until maybee the last 1/2 mile. On the way in I saw jim waiting for me to take pictures, I prompty flipped him off, and picked up the pace, figuring if I left transition like I was a zombie, I might as well come back like flesh hungry living dead instead. As I came near the finish line I saw the fam, and then just before I crossed I heard jen scream “you can doooo it”, and I busted out laughing before crossing.

Afterwards I felt dead, but not like im going to die dead, but just tired. But pretty sure I was going to do another one.

the end

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Post race wrap up. Dewey beach triathlon was yesterday. Mike, Chris (a friend of mike’s brother in law Keith), and I woke up at 5-5:15 and then rolled out to Delaware seashore park. We parked, checked the bikes in and got marked. The goody bag was well stocked. In the interest of staying friendly to both genders, there is almost always some kind of make up in the goody bags. Not wanting to waste anything. I painted my toes the night before. According to jen, I did a bad job, but some people at the race seemed to think that I did OK.

Before we headed out to the water, I saw an old friend/ex-co-worker. I was incredibly excited to see her because she is a 2 time cancer survivor, but I had heard that she was a 1 time cancer survivor. It seemed like a bad idea to tell her that I was so excited to see her because I thought she was dead.

OK. Now to the sports. Water was warm and pretty calm for an ocean swim. I swerved a bit, but nowhere near as much as before. I also managed to keep up with people a little bit better. About 10 minutes from the end, some part of my wetsuit started rubbing on my neck. By the time I got out it was raw and hurt like crazy.

T1 was pretty slow, but went OK. Took off on the bike pretty quick. 16 miles out and back on coastal highway, the most interesting part was the bridge over Indian river. I pulled the ride in less than 50 minutes. The winds actually made me tempted to put my aero bars back on my bike for the next one.

T2 was smoothish and the run wasn’t terrible. Boring, but not terrible. The course was essentially a swim at dewey, a ride to Bethany and back, and then a run to Rehoboth (almost) and back.

When I finished, I got to watch mike come in on the bike. I chased him through the transition area while singing eye of the tiger at the top of my lungs. I didn’t piss him off, which I was half hoping to do, but not really.

2 interesting things during the race. One guy doing it on a fixie. Someone else wearing a giant pirate hat during the run.

Photos and post race wrap up from mike will probably come later.

Over and out.

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submitted for your non approval…. songs picked to keep me in a good mood while I wait for my start tomorrow…

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so ive got 5 days till my first triathalon, so today I did my first full training swim. Per usual it sucked. My mother greated me last week with a “hello, did i tell you some one died swimmimg at dewey beach last week”, I told her thanks for the warning, but I could have gone on happily with out knowing. Now im not scared im going to drown, and am sort of confident that im going to finish, but now im just generally nervious about the whole thing. I know I have been training a reasonable ammount, and have done all I can do to this point, considering how much other shit I have going on right now, but still generally scared. To top it all off cherokee reminded me of this little distraction sitting off the carolina coast right now, not to make light of the real problems this could bring, but keep it away from dewey beach damnit.

also im happy to see that geekpunk was kept for the most part a hurricane free zone…Im sorry but I appreciate the discussion of the disaster across the blogosphere… but to some extent it very much belittles the pain and suffering that humanity has been put through …

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