Grab a beverage, sit back and enjoy!

Saturday Night

Our weekend started off with a trip to Spring Lake for a house warming party for a friend of Jennie’s from college.  After spending some time with them, we headed north to my boss’s cottage (aka The Brady Bed and Breakfast) where we were spending the night before the race.  On the way, we stopped and got a Hot N Ready Little Caesar’s pizza and breadsticks.  Mmmmm… Excellent pre-race food.  We got to the cottage around 7:30 and spent some time visiting with my boss and his boss (wife).  They were very accommodating by letting us crash there for the night.  By staying there, we were only about 30 minutes away from Ludington rather than almost 2 hours away from our house.  The cottage is a beautiful place right on Lake Michigan.  We were lulled to sleep by the sound of waves crashing on the shore – very relaxing.

Race Day

Even though we were relatively close to the race site, it was still up at 5:00AM to get ready and head up to Ludington.  I am glad that we got there when we did because it was still fairly empty when we arrived.  It filled up quickly though.  After I did packet pickup and body marking, the line for body marking grew to about 50 people.  The transition area was very well organized and not congested at all.  There were 7 bikes to a rack max, which is a nice change from trying to cram 8 or 9 bikes on each rack.  I got lucky and my assigned row had flag/banner above it, which made it easy to find my row after getting out of swim and back from the bike.

They certainly had an eclectic variety of music booming as we all got ready.  It was mainly a collection of Jock Jams with some random songs (eg. Paula Abdul) thrown in between. They even played Sexual Healing… really??? Is that really a good pump me up song?  Maybe for a different activity, but not for a triathlon.

  
Setting up my transition area and checking out the area. 
The clouds look much more ominous than they actually were

The weather was quite chilly still; the effect of having cold and rainy weather the past few days.  We were assured though that today would be sunny and warm.  It sprinkled a bit while setting up my transition area, but that ended quickly and the sun started to poke through the clouds.  Like Tri Del Sol, everyone was anxious to get in the water because the water temperature (about 70 degrees) was warmer than the air temperature.

Swim

We got a bit of a late start for the swim.  They had to wait for the SS Badger to leave the harbor before sending us on our way.  The swim was located in Lake Michigan, but it was in between two breakwalls, so the water was very calm- almost like swimming in a pool.

 
The left picture is the water in between the breakwalls (where we swam); the one on the right is the open water.

As we made our way into the water, we had to walk carefully because there were a lot of sharp rocks that wanted to cut up our feet and stub our toes.

 
Waiting to get started and carefully making our way into the water

The swim was only 1000m rather than 1500m, so I guess this wasn’t a full Olympic distance race like I had previously thought (the bike and run were the correct Olympic distances though).  It was a rectangular course; 450 yards out, 100 yards over, and 450 yards back.

I started off fairly well.  I was hugging the buoys like I wanted to.  However, about 200 yards into the swim, my right goggle started to leak.  They felt sort of loose when I first put them on, but I didn’t want to risk fiddling with them right before the race.  At first, the tiny bit of water was actually helpful because it acted like a windshield wiper and kept my right goggle fog free.  Unfortunately, it kept getting worse and worse and eventually was more of a hindrance, making it harder to see.

The second half of the swim didn’t go nearly as well as the first half.  For the life of me, I couldn’t swim straight on the buoy line.  I was also having trouble seeing the finish line on the shore, so I didn’t even have a good point in the distance to aim for.  I ended up finishing the swim in 22:05 (which includes about a minute run to the transition area).  After the race, I did hear some other people speculating that the swim was actually a bit longer than 1000m.  I was comforted by this because my pace was way off compared to other races.

  
Finishing the swim and running up the beach.  Finally a good post-swim
picture where I don’t look like I am going to die.

T1

The first transition went very well.  Because the flag at the end of my rack, I was able to find my bike quickly.  I took my time to brush the sand off my feet and put socks on.  Usually, for a shorter race like this, I wouldn’t bother with socks, but it was still kind of chilly and there is nothing worse than frozen feet while on the bike.  That happened to me at Reeds Lake last year and was just downright annoying.  It was a small transition area, so I was still in and out and 1:38.

Bike

After jumping on the bike, I headed out at a good clip.  The first few miles were very flat, so I got right up to 20-21mph.  I was in the first swim wave, so there weren’t a lot of people on the course yet and I had the road pretty much to myself.  The course was fairly well marked.  However, there were a few corners that had volunteers who weren’t very vocal about what you were supposed to do.  I got into the habit of yelling out a question as I approached the corner – “Olympic turns here???”  Once I started doing that, it was a lot less confusing.

About 7 miles into the ride, some jackass tried to run me off the road.  He was pulling out of his driveway, stopped at the end of the driveway, looked directly at me, and then gunned it, trying to make it out in front of me.  I had to slow down a bit, but I was anticipating it as I saw him start to leave his driveway.  I had a good feeling that he wasn’t going to have any regard for anyone else on the road.

The roads themselves were very smooth.  A couple of the corners had some loose gravel, but nothing too slippery.  It was a relatively flat course with a few rolling hills.  I did my best to stay aero as much as possible and even succeeded at staying aero on some of the inclines.

I passed a couple people here and there and got passed by a few as well, but overall there was very little bike traffic on the first part of the course.

Once we got about 15 miles into the course, however, we met up with the sprint course riders.  This part of the course was on a road that leads into the State Park.  The road was lined with sand dunes, so I had to be sort of careful not to hit some of the patches of sand.  I did see one rider drift too far to the right and end up crashing into the dune.  I slowed down to make sure he was alright and he said he was – I think he was more embarrassed than anything.  The ride into the park was on a slight incline and directly into the wind.  It took a lot of mental work to KMF (keep moving forward).  I chanted that in my head over and over as I made my way to the turn around; KMF, KMF, KMF.  With the sprint riders, there were more people to pass, which made it seem like I was moving fast despite the wind.

Once we got to the turn around, the wind was at our back and it was downhill from there.  I was flying for about 2 miles at 25+mph with hardly any effort.  My upper legs and gluts were aching towards the end of the ride, and I was worried that it would affect my run like it did at the Grand Haven Tri and Tri Del Sol.  Nevertheless, I continued to push myself as hard as I could.

I ended up finishing the bike portion in 1:13:33, a 20.2mph pace!  I am thrilled with this time.  It is my fastest pace for the distance and only the second time I have broke 20mph in a race.

T2

T2 was very quick; only 54 seconds.  I did have one accident though.  I stepped on my goggles with my bike cleats on.  It sounded like they cracked, but I can’t find any damage to them now.  I grabbed a water as I headed out on the run.

Run

The run was amazing.  I had almost no brick feeling from the bike.  We started out with the sprint and full distance runners all together and then parted ways after a mile and a half.  It was hard to see who was in what even for that first mile and half, but after that, I didn’t get passed by anyone on the run.  At first, I didn’t think I was going to be passing anyone because I couldn’t even see the runners in front of me.  Eventually, though, I started to see more and more people and ended up passing about 10 or 12 runners.

Headed out on the run and feeling great

My one complaint about the run was the aid stations.  They had water and Hammer HEED sports drink.  The Hammer HEED, however, was clear (or nearly so).  When I thought I was getting water, I got the Hammer HEED, took a huge gulp and nearly gagged.  It tasted awful.  It was sweet and salty at the same time.  Even after getting water at the next aid station, I was still licking my lips and tasting salt.  I am just glad that I didn’t dump it over my head.  It should be a rule that non-water should be colored (like Gatorade).

The run course itself was beautiful.  The middle 3 miles was primarily on a paved nature trail with some unpaved sections.  I flew through this section of the course, and it was just downright fun.  After the trail, we popped back out to the main road.  At this point, we had a mile and half to the finish.  This entire portion was a slight downhill on a straight section of road.  Because of this, it was possible to see the final turn the entire way down the hill.  It was a great motivator to be able to see the finish in the distance.  I was able to pass a couple more people on this final stretch, including a guy I had been chasing for about 2 miles.

 
Starting and finishing the run

  
Aren’t these pictures great?  Thanks a ton to my lovely support crew of one

I finished the run as my best leg of the race.  Lately, the run has not been as good as I would have liked it to have been, but today finally lived up to my expectations.  My time was 46:41 for a 7:31 pace.  This is where I picked up most of my ranking by placing 26th out of 87 on the run.

Post-Race

The post-race was excellent.  Not only did we get medals, but they had great refreshments.  Trays of sub sandwiches, fresh fruit, bags of chips, and Blow Pops (random, I know).  I am thinking that the person who chose Sexual Healing for the soundtrack must have also picked the Blow Pops.

 
Getting my post-race food and making a charming, mouth-full-of-food smile.  

Other Race Notes

There was a course record set for the men (1:48:31).  That is ridiculously fast – and he make it look effortless.

I am starting to see more and more people I know the more races I go to.  I saw D again today (he was doing the full distance as well) along with lots of other familiar faces.  Lots of people wearing Millennium Triathlon shirts as well, so I wasn’t the only one making up for that lost opportunity.

Also, My Team Triumph was at this race.  I have mentioned them in the past, but basically they are a group of athletes who tow, pull, and push people with disabilities so that they can enjoy the thrill of completing a triathlon.  Today, Team Michael made their way to the finish.

Team Michael headed towards the finish

Post-Post-Race

After enjoying the post-race food, I headed back into Lake Michigan for a quick “bath.” I got out and changed into my street clothes so that we could hang around Ludington for a bit before heading home.  The lake bath actually worked better than I thought.  It isn’t the best I have ever smelled, but it was better than my post-triathlon aroma.

We had lunch at House of Flavors, a diner with their own brand of homemade ice cream.  We were both craving some nice greasy food and end up getting orders of chicken fingers and fries.  They disappeared in no time.

MMMmmmm – Greasy food!  It was all gone in about 5 minutes.

After finishing lunch, we headed back to the beach and walked along the breakwall out to the lighthouse.

 
Stopping for a picture and Jennie striking a pose

Trying to not get wet from the waves crashing into the breakwall

Results

Finally

The best sign of the entire day. 
“We have Ice Ice Baby, 2 Cold 2 Cold”

I finished the Ludington Triathlon today.  I gave it my all and went hard the whole way, pushing all the way to the finish.  It paid off.  It is my best finish of the season and I am very happy with how it all went.  We are back home and resting now; the lack of sleep is getting the better of me.  I’m not quite up on doing the full race report now, but I finished in 2:24:49 placing 7th out of 11 in my age group and 35th out of 87 overall. 

Stay tuned for a full race report!

My Garmin 405 went a little haywire yesterday.  I knew something was up when I finished my standard Reeds Lake loop and my watch was reporting that the course had mysteriously gotten .15 mile shorter than the last time I ran it.  When I loaded the workout data on the computer, this is what I got.

Apparently, not only did I start from someone else’s house, but then I proceeded to cut through a few peoples’ yards rather than follow the road.  Then, rather than following the logical course around the lake, I took an angular route through more yards before getting back on the course.  Weird.  I don’t remember doing that.  The good thing is that SportTracks does a pretty good job of route error correction and fixed the route to show that I did the full 6 miles.

Maybe this is just a sign of things to come.

Anyway, I had a good 6 mile run yesterday, followed by a nice and easy 10 miler this morning.  It is very nice to be building up my running base again.  This will be my first week in a long time where I will surpass 30 running miles.  YAY!

Tomorrow is the Ludington Triathlon, so time to get all packed up and ready.

I finally signed up for the Ludington Triathlon for this weekend.  This is sort of my makeup race for the canceled Millennium Triathlon.  It is an Olympic distance triathlon rather than a Sprint.  I really haven’t backed off my training much since Steelhead, so I should be ready for it.  I am hoping that I can best my Grand Haven Tri performance, which shouldn’t be too difficult because there won’t be the long run between the swim and transition area like there was in Grand Haven.  That alone should cut 7 minutes off my time.

We haven’t finalized our plans yet, but we may take my boss up on an offer to stay at their cottage on the night before the race so that we are bit closer to Ludington on race day.  Either way, I am sure that we will spend some time relaxing in Ludington after the race.  We spent some time there last summer, and it is a very fun and relaxing city.  It has a great touristy Main Street, but isn’t overwhelming.  Plus, there are lots of good eateries that we will have to decide between.

More details to come as we figure them out!

Well, it is official, if you want to guarantee bad weather for a race, just invite me. First it was River Bank a few years ago that started with a deluge of rain 5 minutes before the gun went off. Then it was the heat wave in Chicago 2007. And now, the Ludington half marathon was canceled because of torrential races in Mason and Manistee counties that closed roads, the state park, and left many house under water. The rains came down on Thursday night and we were oblivious to the destruction until we were there and checked in. At that point, all we could do was make the best of it. The race wasn’t a total bust though. All of the runners were able to compete in the 5k race and the half marathoners had their times recorded separately than the original 5k group.

I was, understandably, pretty disappointed when I found out the half marathon was canceled. It was sort of poor communication from the race directors though. I found out about the cancellation from a worker at the local bike store and didn’t hear anything "official" from the race crew at the packet pickup or anything. Beyond that, I really wasn’t prepared to run a 5k; I haven’t done any speed work at all in the past weeks. It has all been endurance and distance to prepare for my first triathlon in July.

Come race day, I figured I would give it my best and go out hard. It was only 3 miles and I figured that even if I went out too fast, it would be over in 20 minutes. I forgot my watch on the trip, so I was only able to get my first mile split (6:24) at which point I knew I was in pretty good shape. I thought I would be able to keep it up and possibly break 20:00 for the first time since high school. Unfortunately, after the first mile, we turned into a campground and ran on a dirt/gravel road for about a half mile which slowed me down a bit. There was no one calling splits at mile 2, but I thought I was still in good shape because I was doing more passing than getting passed. However, the final mile had two fairly good sized hills that I didn’t anticipate. I ended up finishing in 20:48 which actually earned me 3rd place in my age group. Medals went three deep in each age group, so I ended up with a 2nd place medal; 2nd rather than 3rd, because 1st in my age group was 1st overall. The medal is actually for the half marathon, so I guess 20:47 is a great PR for a half marathon (I have the medal to prove it)!

Other than the race, we had a great time and would definitely go back to Ludington. We left on Friday afternoon, stayed two nights that Lodging and Breakfast (www.lodgingandbreakfast.com) coming back Sunday afternoon. At first we sort of struggled for things to do because the beaches were closed due to a sewage problems caused by the rain (how pleasant), but we ended up just spending a lot of time relaxing. We drove around Friday night to get oriented with area and stopped at Meijer to pick out some reading material for the weekend; The Last Templar for me and My Sister’s Keeper for Jennie. After that we parked in the downtown Ludington area and walked around a bit. We ended up at a 50′s dinner called House of Flavors which also makes their own ice cream. Dinner was great and we ended up eating too much to have ice cream that night, but we would be back.

On Saturday, we started with the race which was over by about 10:00 leaving us the rest of the day to explore. We brought our bikes with us, so most of our exploring was done on two wheels. Lunch was at the Plaza Cafe, a restaurant specializing in organic foods. It was amazing. We both wish there was something like it in Gaslight Village. After lunch we actually spent some time at the library. Nothing spectacular, but it was quiet and we were able to just relax.

Dinner was at Luciano’s a wonderful pizza place downtown. Like the other restaurants, we were seated immediately, but they all filled right up. We had pizza and breadsticks and it was all fabulous. We basically had to be rolled out afterwards. As we were leaving, the skies were clouding up and looking quite ominous. We drove down to the beach to watch the store roll in which seemed like the thing to do because the parking lot was full of people doing the same thing.

On Sunday, we got up early so that I could get a long run in for the weekend. We headed out, Jennie on the bike, to run as much of the half marathon course that we could. We were able to get into the State Park, but couldn’t get all the way through because part of it was blocked off still. It was very nice to have some different scenery on a long run and running along the dunes was very peaceful. We even got a few pictures running along the dunes, biking along the dunes, and the dunes in general.

After we got back, it was time to pack up and head out. All in all, it was a very relaxing weekend. Probably not exactly what either of us had planned, but sometimes that is part of the fun.

Race Results
Time: 20:48
Overall Place: 29 / 394
Gender Place: 24 / 188
Division Place: 2 / 12
Total Pace: 6:42/M