Chris (The Pro Golfer) 
Myself, Richard, Pablo, John 
The Prize Money, 1,000W=1USD, close enough. So yeah $10,000 USD to WIN the team GC. 
The Schedule 
The Map......... Tuesday, April 12, 2011
2011 TDK Preview
12 Apr 2011- Well I mentioned in my previous blog that I will be racing in the 2011 Tour de Korea "Special" Division. This is the amateur division of the TDK, but is still a 9 day stage race like the pros, just a little shorter each day. I will be racing on Team Storck/Rapha out of Seoul. Our team is comprised of both Koreans and Foreigners. We have 4 Americans on the team, myself, John, Nathan and Richard. We also have an Irish fella, Peter "Honey Badger" Tuhoy and a South African Elmer "The Flying Ostrich" Pieterse. We are still working on nicknames for everyone else, but Elmer got his because of his tiny little Ostrich legs and Peter because we found a funny YouTube Video about the "Honey Badger" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg) and how "It don't give a shit" and "Its a Bad Ass". For the Korean guys we have: A former Olympian who is now 50+ and kicks my ass, Mr. Lee , Jin Ok. Pablo who is the Storck Store Owner and also owns all the Harley Davidson shops in Korea. Chae and Kaiden, both who weigh nothing and fly up the hills. There is also Chris, who is a Pro Golfer and great cyclist, and finally the mystery men who I have yet to meet, some young guys and one "sprinter" who apparently has calfs bigger than my quads put together. Now a little bit about the race: 9 Stages Total Distance 854.9K Longest Stage 129.6K Shortest Stage 47.7K Prize Money? YES KOM? YES Some of you know that I have only been around the sport for a mere 3 years. This June will mark a complete 3 years since I have been competing. I have never done a "bike race" other than the 2 hill climbs. I have a lot to learn over the next 9 days, is a stage race ideal? NO! I look at it as I will have to learn quick to be successful, but I feel that I am in some great shape right now and can help the team out in the overall standing. I am not going into this race for myself to get recognized on the podium, I look forward to being the work horse that brings my fellow teammates that have been focusing purely on cycling to the podium. We have a very talented team and I believe we are already targeted by some of the other teams. I am super stoked about his and am really looking forward to my first road race/stage race! I have been fortunate enough to get the time off of work to participate in this race and am really looking forward to it. I have consulted with my coach and we both agree it is not the best idea as I will not be able to swim for 10 days, but I do plan on running here and there. I look at it as 10 days to focus on just training/racing and recovering. You can't really ask for much more. I will come off of these 9 days with a once in a life time experience and have seen parts of Korea some people will never see and make some great friends throughout the trip. I know going into this that it is a risk, but I take risk everyday going out for a run or a ride. You never know what is going to happen, so seize the moment and take advantage of the opportunities that are placed in front of you. If you want more information about the race check out the site: www.tourdekorea.or.kr. If you are in Korea the easiest stage to come watch from Osan/Seoul will be on April 24th in Seoul, it finishes at Olympic Park. Shoot me an email if you are interested and I can send you details on how to get up there.
Chris (The Pro Golfer)
Myself, Richard, Pablo, John
The Prize Money, 1,000W=1USD, close enough. So yeah $10,000 USD to WIN the team GC.
The Schedule
The Map.........
Chris (The Pro Golfer) Myself, Richard, Pablo, John The Prize Money, 1,000W=1USD, close enough. So yeah $10,000 USD to WIN the team GC. The Schedule The Map......... 
Misiryung Hill Climb......2 for 2 within seconds
10 April 11- Sokcho South Korea
Well it is 5 days out from the Tour de Korea, so off we headed to Sokcho for a 20K Hill Climb. O yeah I forgot, this is the first some of you are hearing about Tour de Korea. I will be racing the Tour de Korea's "Special" race (Amateur Division). It is a 9 day stage race that has one rest day, so it is 10 days total. More to come on the TDK in my next blog. The Hill Climb was a team bonding/race prep for TDK.
Sokcho is about 4 hours from Osan and about 3 hours from Seoul. We headed over there Saturday and did one repeat of the mountain and a little more riding just to get some miles in. We had a total of 14 people that went and 10 of us were racing. It is quite amazing out in Sokcho as the ocean is right there and the water is really nice out there. It was quite windy though, which made things a little difficult while up on the mountain.
During our ride up the mountain on Saturday myself and Elmer saw a Korean MTB'er come flying down the mountain and about kill himself as he skidded out of control and crashed head/shoulder first into a concrete wall. He bounced up quite quickly and was dazed and confused on what happened, so me and Elmer helped him out and his helmet was cracked in 2 separate places. The guy was alright luckily, as it could have been a lot worse. After our ride I snuck out for a quick 20 min run. I say snuck out because all these "roadies" think I am crazy for running and swimming leading into a stage race. They all understand what my goals are this year and are still allowing me to race with them, so hopefully I can benefit the team. After the run we went out to dinner at a chicken soup place, it was so far out in BFE that they had to send a car to show us the way. It was alright, but for some reason Korean food doesn't fill me. After dinner we went to E-Mart and picked up groceries for breakfast and then some of us got more stuff for dinner #2. I also picked up some beers to enjoy, carbo loading is a key point to pre race prep ;)
After the beers and dinner #2 we sat around and BS'd about life in general and racing. Ended up hitting the sack around 10 and was woken up at 3am to some crazy noises outside. I woke up and the wind was howling outside and the flags outside the hotel were whipping around crazily. It was pretty crazy to think that we were going to race the next day in the same conditions. Sure enough when I got up 3 hours later it was still the same
and I was surprised the flags were still attached to the flag pole.
We rode over to the race and the team event went off first. Our team had 5 guys in that event, with 2nd-4th place times being added up and used for the winner of the team event. They ended up winning the team event and brought home 1 million won (about $950USD). Then we had 5 of us in the AG division. I was the youngest and our AG went off first. It was nice to of already pre rode the course and know how it was going to be. I had asked before hand and was told it was timing off the gun, not chip time. So no strategy needed for the start, just be the first person up the mountain, simple enough. So off I went the first 5K was pretty flat with some false flats in there. I stayed mid pack and then slowly worked my way up before the climb. I started the climb in 5th place and stayed there for quite some time. At 35 minutes in I was 35 seconds down on two guys that got away, and was hoping they would bonk later in the climb. With 1K to go I had moved up to 2nd and was 19 seconds down. The game breaker came when we got to a section of straight up the 20-25% grade or take the outside which was about 10-15%. I had spoken early that night with John about tactics on hill climbs and what lines to take. So obviously the inside lane with the steep grade is the shortest distance, and I had to make a move to make up time so I took that line and the other guy had taken the outside line. I made up about 10 seconds with that and then had about 800M to go of a more gradual up hill. With about 400M to go some guy started running besides the guy that was leading and telling him he was #1, he failed to look back and see me coming for about 2 seconds then when he realized I had a slight chance of catching him started yelling at the guy to do something, not sure what cause it was all in Korean, but I assume it was something to the effect of "YOU BETTER GO FASTER HE IS COMING". Seeing that guy run beside him lit a fire and I chased down this guy and made a strong move past him putting about 5 seconds into him and crossing the line first. Well come to find out beating someone by 5 seconds isn't enough when they start 6 seconds behind you. Lone and behold it was chip timing and not gun time :( So I ended up 2nd in my AG out of 57, but it was a great confidence booster and confirmed to myself that my legs are in some serious shape right now.
I want to give a big thanks to everyone that made this weekend possible: Team Storck/Rapha, Jeremy Moon (our team manager), Helen for taking pictures, Megan for tagging along and crushing the climb with us on Saturday, and everyone else that continues to support me.
Next up TDK........................
At the top on Saturday
Went back to the Statue from the Triathlon and found my name on it :)
About 2K to go!
BRUTAL!
That is part of the route.........
Well it is 5 days out from the Tour de Korea, so off we headed to Sokcho for a 20K Hill Climb. O yeah I forgot, this is the first some of you are hearing about Tour de Korea. I will be racing the Tour de Korea's "Special" race (Amateur Division). It is a 9 day stage race that has one rest day, so it is 10 days total. More to come on the TDK in my next blog. The Hill Climb was a team bonding/race prep for TDK.
Sokcho is about 4 hours from Osan and about 3 hours from Seoul. We headed over there Saturday and did one repeat of the mountain and a little more riding just to get some miles in. We had a total of 14 people that went and 10 of us were racing. It is quite amazing out in Sokcho as the ocean is right there and the water is really nice out there. It was quite windy though, which made things a little difficult while up on the mountain.
During our ride up the mountain on Saturday myself and Elmer saw a Korean MTB'er come flying down the mountain and about kill himself as he skidded out of control and crashed head/shoulder first into a concrete wall. He bounced up quite quickly and was dazed and confused on what happened, so me and Elmer helped him out and his helmet was cracked in 2 separate places. The guy was alright luckily, as it could have been a lot worse. After our ride I snuck out for a quick 20 min run. I say snuck out because all these "roadies" think I am crazy for running and swimming leading into a stage race. They all understand what my goals are this year and are still allowing me to race with them, so hopefully I can benefit the team. After the run we went out to dinner at a chicken soup place, it was so far out in BFE that they had to send a car to show us the way. It was alright, but for some reason Korean food doesn't fill me. After dinner we went to E-Mart and picked up groceries for breakfast and then some of us got more stuff for dinner #2. I also picked up some beers to enjoy, carbo loading is a key point to pre race prep ;)
After the beers and dinner #2 we sat around and BS'd about life in general and racing. Ended up hitting the sack around 10 and was woken up at 3am to some crazy noises outside. I woke up and the wind was howling outside and the flags outside the hotel were whipping around crazily. It was pretty crazy to think that we were going to race the next day in the same conditions. Sure enough when I got up 3 hours later it was still the same
and I was surprised the flags were still attached to the flag pole.
We rode over to the race and the team event went off first. Our team had 5 guys in that event, with 2nd-4th place times being added up and used for the winner of the team event. They ended up winning the team event and brought home 1 million won (about $950USD). Then we had 5 of us in the AG division. I was the youngest and our AG went off first. It was nice to of already pre rode the course and know how it was going to be. I had asked before hand and was told it was timing off the gun, not chip time. So no strategy needed for the start, just be the first person up the mountain, simple enough. So off I went the first 5K was pretty flat with some false flats in there. I stayed mid pack and then slowly worked my way up before the climb. I started the climb in 5th place and stayed there for quite some time. At 35 minutes in I was 35 seconds down on two guys that got away, and was hoping they would bonk later in the climb. With 1K to go I had moved up to 2nd and was 19 seconds down. The game breaker came when we got to a section of straight up the 20-25% grade or take the outside which was about 10-15%. I had spoken early that night with John about tactics on hill climbs and what lines to take. So obviously the inside lane with the steep grade is the shortest distance, and I had to make a move to make up time so I took that line and the other guy had taken the outside line. I made up about 10 seconds with that and then had about 800M to go of a more gradual up hill. With about 400M to go some guy started running besides the guy that was leading and telling him he was #1, he failed to look back and see me coming for about 2 seconds then when he realized I had a slight chance of catching him started yelling at the guy to do something, not sure what cause it was all in Korean, but I assume it was something to the effect of "YOU BETTER GO FASTER HE IS COMING". Seeing that guy run beside him lit a fire and I chased down this guy and made a strong move past him putting about 5 seconds into him and crossing the line first. Well come to find out beating someone by 5 seconds isn't enough when they start 6 seconds behind you. Lone and behold it was chip timing and not gun time :( So I ended up 2nd in my AG out of 57, but it was a great confidence booster and confirmed to myself that my legs are in some serious shape right now.
I want to give a big thanks to everyone that made this weekend possible: Team Storck/Rapha, Jeremy Moon (our team manager), Helen for taking pictures, Megan for tagging along and crushing the climb with us on Saturday, and everyone else that continues to support me.
Next up TDK........................
At the top on Saturday
Went back to the Statue from the Triathlon and found my name on it :)
About 2K to go!
BRUTAL!
That is part of the route.........Sunday, March 27, 2011
Singapore 70.3-Hot/Humid and FAST
20 Mar 11- Singapore 70.3
Well I have decided to turn this into a 2 part blog. The first part will be about the race and the second part I will write about my travels and fun in Singapore. But first off, thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes and good luck leading up to the race. Getting older is never fun, but especially the years that you have to age group up. This is the first time I have had to experience this and well instead of racing in a "small" young age group there were 98 people entered in my age group. The biggest AG field I have had to compete against. The one disadvantage I will struggle with throughout these next couple of years is I am "young" in the age group and some of the guys will have been at the sport for quite some time by the time they are in there late 20's. All this means is I will have to train harder and of course smarter, so with that being said I stepped up 2011 with some changes which I have already mentioned. Having a coach was the biggest change, and looking below at the race report I hope that you can see the big difference in the swim, bike, and a small change on the run.
Swim- This past winter has been a big change for me. I have been swimming quite a bit and showed up hoping for a good swim "time". I knew it would be a little skewed and slower than expected due to the fact that it was a non wetsuit swim. I made sure and prepared for the non-wetsuit swim and hooked up with Kiwami USA and had an Amphibian speed suit made, I need all the help I can get when it comes to swimming. I had a good start and found some clean water. There were a couple waves that started ahead of us but there was a 5min gap. About 600 meters into the swim is when I hit the first part of bad traffic and had to start swimming through people. It was a 2 loop course and I came out of the first looped and looked down and saw 18:30 on my watch, man was that a heart breaker. I felt like I was exerting a lot of energy and swimming "strong", but the time was reflecting that. I went out for the second loop and it was really congested. I was climbing, crawling and just trying to flat out avoid people. For some reason it must have been a different race for a lot of people because I missed the message that it was the 1.9K breast stroke world championships. I feared getting kicked the whole time and really started getting concerned about taking a low blow and being in a lot of pain. I swam cautiously for the last 1/4 of the swim and tried to avoid people at all cost. Ended up coming out of the water and my watch said 38:XX.
Official time- 39:17-69th Overall Amateur/9th Age Group
Bike- The off season also had a strong focus on the bike. I knew it was going to be flat and feared there would be a lot of drafting going on. Being at Clearwater in 2009 I knew if I was surrounded by others drafting I would join in, luckily I was never caught by a pack or approached a big pack. I am proud to say that I rode a clean race and was never behind anybody by 7 meters for longer than 20 seconds, those are the drafting rules. YES, I did slingshot A LOT of people but that is legal. I would often wave as the groups of people going in the opposite direction went by in there packs of 10-30 riders. It pissed me off to see it, but I knew ahead of time it was going to happen. I passed a few 4-5 persons group on the last lap and asked them to get a little closer to each other because there was only 1 meter and that at ½ a meter you get a better draft. They just looked at me like I was crazy for riding solo. I thought that is how triathlon was suppose to be ;) So moral of the story is my bike strength has came a long ways since November 2009. I rode faster than I did in Clearwater by 27 seconds, but I rode solo this time instead of in a pack. I felt strong and confident on the bike and really watched my watts and nutrition. I believe those were two key factors too why I ended up with the fastest bike split in my age group, yep 1st out of 99 :).
Official Time- 2:16:05-24th Overall Amateur/1st Age Group
Run- And the one thing I have just tried to maintain over the winter and not put a big focus on. Well it is the one thing that bit me in the behind. Because I didn’t concentrate on it? NO, because I was unprepared for the heat and it got to me. I still had the fastest HIM run split to date and was still happy with how I ran. The one thing I was depending on was to get some cola within the first couple K as advertised but couldn’t find any at the stops. Luckily for the first 10K sponges were abundant and I was able to get my body temp down. The last 10K however sponges started running out and it was a battle with the heat. I sucked it up for the last 7K and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other and getting to the finish line. Around 5K in the run the guy that took second in my age group ran by me. He thought he was a wise fella and asked me how old I was (the ages weren’t on our calf like normal) and I told him I was 25. He said “good” I am 30, I was happy because he was really moving. Not even 10 seconds later Whit Raymond, the announcer, say “There goes Preddy, he will be on the podium today in the 25-29 AG, he is a fast 25 year old”. That got me pretty heated, I mean great tactics on his part but shit lying straight to my face about how old you are? Funny thing is I was starting to run him down towards the end and I didn’t even know it, he finished 25 seconds up on me. So in finish chute there he was waiting for me and said congrats and good race. I chuckled and said thanks and then in a jokingly way “Yeah good race you 25 year old ASS HOLE, can’t believe you lied to me. Well played my friend”. No hard feelings he just taught me a new trick ;)
Official Time- 1:35:44- 24th Overall Amateur/6th Age Group
I was really happy with the outcome of the race and couldn’t of asked for anything to go better. Other than the heat, but I believe I perform well in the heat so I can’t complain about it too much. The guys that came up from Australia and who were from Singapore definitely had an upper hand as they have had the heat to train in, as where I had only seen one weekend over 50 since November. I can’t thank everyone enough who has supported me throughout this journey. From family to friends to training partners, it has been one heck of a journey and I can’t wait for this upward slope that it is on to continue upwards.
Official recap below of all race times:
S- 39:17-69th Overall Amateur/9th Age Group
B- 2:16:05-24th Overall Amateur/1st Age Group
R- 1:35:44-24th Overall Amateur/6th Age Group
Total- 4:34:49-19th Overall Amateur out of approx 1500/3rd Age Group out of 98
The bike all race ready!
Transition area setup and ready to go.
Very cool shot, don't know why I was the center of attention but it was titled "Start Stopwatch" on Flickr.
Wish I could say the Kiwami Amphibian made me "fast" but it sure did put me further up in my AG out of the water than I expected!
Under the Amphibian I had the Kiwami Konami. Great one piece for a hot day, Kiwami did an amazing job on the custom work on both suits!
Out on the bike........
I guess i was feeling good at this point......
A little more painful at this point.
And its over.........
I think I should of finished 2nd, would of had a cute girl to share 2nd with ;) The first place guy didn't show up, and that is "Preddy" all dressed up.
Well I have decided to turn this into a 2 part blog. The first part will be about the race and the second part I will write about my travels and fun in Singapore. But first off, thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes and good luck leading up to the race. Getting older is never fun, but especially the years that you have to age group up. This is the first time I have had to experience this and well instead of racing in a "small" young age group there were 98 people entered in my age group. The biggest AG field I have had to compete against. The one disadvantage I will struggle with throughout these next couple of years is I am "young" in the age group and some of the guys will have been at the sport for quite some time by the time they are in there late 20's. All this means is I will have to train harder and of course smarter, so with that being said I stepped up 2011 with some changes which I have already mentioned. Having a coach was the biggest change, and looking below at the race report I hope that you can see the big difference in the swim, bike, and a small change on the run.
Swim- This past winter has been a big change for me. I have been swimming quite a bit and showed up hoping for a good swim "time". I knew it would be a little skewed and slower than expected due to the fact that it was a non wetsuit swim. I made sure and prepared for the non-wetsuit swim and hooked up with Kiwami USA and had an Amphibian speed suit made, I need all the help I can get when it comes to swimming. I had a good start and found some clean water. There were a couple waves that started ahead of us but there was a 5min gap. About 600 meters into the swim is when I hit the first part of bad traffic and had to start swimming through people. It was a 2 loop course and I came out of the first looped and looked down and saw 18:30 on my watch, man was that a heart breaker. I felt like I was exerting a lot of energy and swimming "strong", but the time was reflecting that. I went out for the second loop and it was really congested. I was climbing, crawling and just trying to flat out avoid people. For some reason it must have been a different race for a lot of people because I missed the message that it was the 1.9K breast stroke world championships. I feared getting kicked the whole time and really started getting concerned about taking a low blow and being in a lot of pain. I swam cautiously for the last 1/4 of the swim and tried to avoid people at all cost. Ended up coming out of the water and my watch said 38:XX.
Official time- 39:17-69th Overall Amateur/9th Age Group
Bike- The off season also had a strong focus on the bike. I knew it was going to be flat and feared there would be a lot of drafting going on. Being at Clearwater in 2009 I knew if I was surrounded by others drafting I would join in, luckily I was never caught by a pack or approached a big pack. I am proud to say that I rode a clean race and was never behind anybody by 7 meters for longer than 20 seconds, those are the drafting rules. YES, I did slingshot A LOT of people but that is legal. I would often wave as the groups of people going in the opposite direction went by in there packs of 10-30 riders. It pissed me off to see it, but I knew ahead of time it was going to happen. I passed a few 4-5 persons group on the last lap and asked them to get a little closer to each other because there was only 1 meter and that at ½ a meter you get a better draft. They just looked at me like I was crazy for riding solo. I thought that is how triathlon was suppose to be ;) So moral of the story is my bike strength has came a long ways since November 2009. I rode faster than I did in Clearwater by 27 seconds, but I rode solo this time instead of in a pack. I felt strong and confident on the bike and really watched my watts and nutrition. I believe those were two key factors too why I ended up with the fastest bike split in my age group, yep 1st out of 99 :).
Official Time- 2:16:05-24th Overall Amateur/1st Age Group
Run- And the one thing I have just tried to maintain over the winter and not put a big focus on. Well it is the one thing that bit me in the behind. Because I didn’t concentrate on it? NO, because I was unprepared for the heat and it got to me. I still had the fastest HIM run split to date and was still happy with how I ran. The one thing I was depending on was to get some cola within the first couple K as advertised but couldn’t find any at the stops. Luckily for the first 10K sponges were abundant and I was able to get my body temp down. The last 10K however sponges started running out and it was a battle with the heat. I sucked it up for the last 7K and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other and getting to the finish line. Around 5K in the run the guy that took second in my age group ran by me. He thought he was a wise fella and asked me how old I was (the ages weren’t on our calf like normal) and I told him I was 25. He said “good” I am 30, I was happy because he was really moving. Not even 10 seconds later Whit Raymond, the announcer, say “There goes Preddy, he will be on the podium today in the 25-29 AG, he is a fast 25 year old”. That got me pretty heated, I mean great tactics on his part but shit lying straight to my face about how old you are? Funny thing is I was starting to run him down towards the end and I didn’t even know it, he finished 25 seconds up on me. So in finish chute there he was waiting for me and said congrats and good race. I chuckled and said thanks and then in a jokingly way “Yeah good race you 25 year old ASS HOLE, can’t believe you lied to me. Well played my friend”. No hard feelings he just taught me a new trick ;)
Official Time- 1:35:44- 24th Overall Amateur/6th Age Group
I was really happy with the outcome of the race and couldn’t of asked for anything to go better. Other than the heat, but I believe I perform well in the heat so I can’t complain about it too much. The guys that came up from Australia and who were from Singapore definitely had an upper hand as they have had the heat to train in, as where I had only seen one weekend over 50 since November. I can’t thank everyone enough who has supported me throughout this journey. From family to friends to training partners, it has been one heck of a journey and I can’t wait for this upward slope that it is on to continue upwards.
Official recap below of all race times:
S- 39:17-69th Overall Amateur/9th Age Group
B- 2:16:05-24th Overall Amateur/1st Age Group
R- 1:35:44-24th Overall Amateur/6th Age Group
Total- 4:34:49-19th Overall Amateur out of approx 1500/3rd Age Group out of 98
The bike all race ready!
Transition area setup and ready to go.
Very cool shot, don't know why I was the center of attention but it was titled "Start Stopwatch" on Flickr.
Wish I could say the Kiwami Amphibian made me "fast" but it sure did put me further up in my AG out of the water than I expected!
Under the Amphibian I had the Kiwami Konami. Great one piece for a hot day, Kiwami did an amazing job on the custom work on both suits!
Out on the bike........
I guess i was feeling good at this point......
A little more painful at this point.
And its over.........
I think I should of finished 2nd, would of had a cute girl to share 2nd with ;) The first place guy didn't show up, and that is "Preddy" all dressed up.Friday, March 18, 2011
Singapore 70.3 Pre-Race
19 Mar 2011-
Well first off I now am officially 1/4 of a century OLD, yes I said old. I was reminded of this when I skyped with my mom this morning, as it was still my birthday back in the states. So with that comes age grouping up, I guess you can say I am becoming a big boy and having to race with the men now and not the college/young guys. Believe it or not as you age group up in triathlon it gets tougher until you reach the 45-49 age group, and even then things still aren't easy. So tomorrow will be the true test of how this age grouping up thing goes.
Over the past couple months I have been coached by Scott DeFilippis, a Pro Triathlete on Team TBB(www.teamtbbcoaching.com). The team started an online coaching service late last year and I jumped on board in December. I realized to continue to progress in the sport and be successful I needed more structure and someone to keep an eye on my training other than myself. I use to just go out and run or go out and ride. And then the mediocre tossing and turning I was doing in the pool, I guess you could call that swimming. I had first realized what structure could do for me when I sat down with Elissa when I was back in Turkey and laid out a marathon plan. Having an experienced athlete/coach sit down and lay things out for you makes a huge difference. After that I realized that a coach for triathlon was a step I needed to make.
With the change in place a lot of pieces to the puzzle have fallen into place. I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by great athletes and people that have helped me in many ways. A CAT 1 and CAT 3 cyclist are both at Osan right now and I have been lucky enough to ride with them on a consistent basis, thanks Zach and Aaron for putting up with a tri guy! I was also lucky enough to come across a great swimmer that has helped me with my stroke and then just constantly kicking my ass day in and day out in the pool. Unfortunately Traci is going to be gone for the summer and not be able to continue to help me, but she will be back in the fall and we will pick up where I left off. Over the past 4 weeks an AF Marathon/Cross Country team member was TDY to Osan. It was nice getting in a few runs with Jason and showing him the ropes of Korea and how awesome the racing is. Can't wait for him to get back out here so we can terrorize the Korean running scene. Thanks for the ass kicking Jason! Then of course having Scott as a coach has been the biggest change. Knowing that someone is there that reviews your plan and your workouts and puts things into place to help you improve is awesome. I still have to put in the work, but having a structure plan with a purpose is the thing that has helped the most. Then knowing that he is checking my workouts makes me accountable for putting in the work. With all of this happening I believe I am in the best shape I have been in, and I am here in Singapore ready to prove to myself that the hard work has paid off.
The plan for tomorrow is to go out and execute the race plan. I have been putting a lot of time in the pool, but I still am just trying to survive the swim and then get out and have a solid bike and run. The humidity has been bearable here, I thought it would be a lot worse. I think I will be alright considering the heat/humidity, but you never know what race day can bring. I just plan to go out tomorrow and to give it my all that is really all that I can guarantee. I can guarantee that and that I am racing for more than myself, I am racing with a purpose. Since I have started racing for more than just myself the races have been more meaningful and satisfying.
Today marks a special day, it is a good friend of mines birthday. She is no longer here with us, but I miss her quite a bit and think about her from time to time. It seems like it was just yesterday that myself and April were headed to watch our friends play in the HS Football All Star game. When we were headed out Patterson we got too a bad accident just before Mchenry. The road was closed and they made us take a side street. I remember telling April that it had to of been a really bad accident, and more than likely a fatal since they had shut the road down. Little did we know that it was one of the nicest, most caring people in our senior class. We had just graduated a month or so prior and had been fortunate enough to not lose any of our close friends through all of HS. We didn't find out till we got to the game that it was Kristina, and it hit all of us really hard. It was one of the hardest loses I have been through, other than my Grandpa. So tomorrow I will race for "K", also known to me as beautiful. We would always see each other at school and I would call her beautiful and she would call me handsome, just our little nicknames. My buddy was dating her and he didn't mind as we always managed to put a smile on each others faces.
I will also be racing tomorrow for my boss's son. My boss left work on Wednesday to head back to the states to be with his family. His kid had come down with bronchitis or pneumonia, not exactly which one it was but if I remember he is only 6 or 8 and one of his lungs had filled up with liquid and had then collapsed. I have not got an update since I left, but I continue to pray for his child and his family. I can only hope for the best and will race hard tomorrow for both of these people.
Well now that the sad part of the blog is out of the way, I have been enjoying Singapore. Yesterday I got out for an easy ride and rode along the coast. I also found a local pool and swam there twice. It was an interesting experience as it had no lane buoy lines and they would not let me use paddles. Other than that it was a very nice pool and only about 0.80 cents to swim there. Today I went down to transition area and checked the bike in and got an easy swim in. It wasn't too far from the hotel, maybe 8-10K so just a short ride. I have found free internet in the hotel, from someones router close to the hotel, but they turn it off during the day for some reason so I am using internet at an internet cafe. Only $1.50 an hour so very reasonable compared to the hotel where they want $2 for 15 mins. It has been nice to just relax and be completely stress free.
Well if you have read down the blog this far then you can find out about tomorrows race ;) You can track the race at www.ironmanlive.com, bib number 364. Race starts at 0820 Singapore time which is: 420pm West Coast time, 720pm East Coast time, 720am Korea time.
I will add some pictures tonight when I get back to the hotel. Thanks again for all the continued support, with out great family/friends I would not be who I am today or where I am today. Thanks again!
Well first off I now am officially 1/4 of a century OLD, yes I said old. I was reminded of this when I skyped with my mom this morning, as it was still my birthday back in the states. So with that comes age grouping up, I guess you can say I am becoming a big boy and having to race with the men now and not the college/young guys. Believe it or not as you age group up in triathlon it gets tougher until you reach the 45-49 age group, and even then things still aren't easy. So tomorrow will be the true test of how this age grouping up thing goes.
Over the past couple months I have been coached by Scott DeFilippis, a Pro Triathlete on Team TBB(www.teamtbbcoaching.com). The team started an online coaching service late last year and I jumped on board in December. I realized to continue to progress in the sport and be successful I needed more structure and someone to keep an eye on my training other than myself. I use to just go out and run or go out and ride. And then the mediocre tossing and turning I was doing in the pool, I guess you could call that swimming. I had first realized what structure could do for me when I sat down with Elissa when I was back in Turkey and laid out a marathon plan. Having an experienced athlete/coach sit down and lay things out for you makes a huge difference. After that I realized that a coach for triathlon was a step I needed to make.
With the change in place a lot of pieces to the puzzle have fallen into place. I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by great athletes and people that have helped me in many ways. A CAT 1 and CAT 3 cyclist are both at Osan right now and I have been lucky enough to ride with them on a consistent basis, thanks Zach and Aaron for putting up with a tri guy! I was also lucky enough to come across a great swimmer that has helped me with my stroke and then just constantly kicking my ass day in and day out in the pool. Unfortunately Traci is going to be gone for the summer and not be able to continue to help me, but she will be back in the fall and we will pick up where I left off. Over the past 4 weeks an AF Marathon/Cross Country team member was TDY to Osan. It was nice getting in a few runs with Jason and showing him the ropes of Korea and how awesome the racing is. Can't wait for him to get back out here so we can terrorize the Korean running scene. Thanks for the ass kicking Jason! Then of course having Scott as a coach has been the biggest change. Knowing that someone is there that reviews your plan and your workouts and puts things into place to help you improve is awesome. I still have to put in the work, but having a structure plan with a purpose is the thing that has helped the most. Then knowing that he is checking my workouts makes me accountable for putting in the work. With all of this happening I believe I am in the best shape I have been in, and I am here in Singapore ready to prove to myself that the hard work has paid off.
The plan for tomorrow is to go out and execute the race plan. I have been putting a lot of time in the pool, but I still am just trying to survive the swim and then get out and have a solid bike and run. The humidity has been bearable here, I thought it would be a lot worse. I think I will be alright considering the heat/humidity, but you never know what race day can bring. I just plan to go out tomorrow and to give it my all that is really all that I can guarantee. I can guarantee that and that I am racing for more than myself, I am racing with a purpose. Since I have started racing for more than just myself the races have been more meaningful and satisfying.
Today marks a special day, it is a good friend of mines birthday. She is no longer here with us, but I miss her quite a bit and think about her from time to time. It seems like it was just yesterday that myself and April were headed to watch our friends play in the HS Football All Star game. When we were headed out Patterson we got too a bad accident just before Mchenry. The road was closed and they made us take a side street. I remember telling April that it had to of been a really bad accident, and more than likely a fatal since they had shut the road down. Little did we know that it was one of the nicest, most caring people in our senior class. We had just graduated a month or so prior and had been fortunate enough to not lose any of our close friends through all of HS. We didn't find out till we got to the game that it was Kristina, and it hit all of us really hard. It was one of the hardest loses I have been through, other than my Grandpa. So tomorrow I will race for "K", also known to me as beautiful. We would always see each other at school and I would call her beautiful and she would call me handsome, just our little nicknames. My buddy was dating her and he didn't mind as we always managed to put a smile on each others faces.
I will also be racing tomorrow for my boss's son. My boss left work on Wednesday to head back to the states to be with his family. His kid had come down with bronchitis or pneumonia, not exactly which one it was but if I remember he is only 6 or 8 and one of his lungs had filled up with liquid and had then collapsed. I have not got an update since I left, but I continue to pray for his child and his family. I can only hope for the best and will race hard tomorrow for both of these people.
Well now that the sad part of the blog is out of the way, I have been enjoying Singapore. Yesterday I got out for an easy ride and rode along the coast. I also found a local pool and swam there twice. It was an interesting experience as it had no lane buoy lines and they would not let me use paddles. Other than that it was a very nice pool and only about 0.80 cents to swim there. Today I went down to transition area and checked the bike in and got an easy swim in. It wasn't too far from the hotel, maybe 8-10K so just a short ride. I have found free internet in the hotel, from someones router close to the hotel, but they turn it off during the day for some reason so I am using internet at an internet cafe. Only $1.50 an hour so very reasonable compared to the hotel where they want $2 for 15 mins. It has been nice to just relax and be completely stress free.
Well if you have read down the blog this far then you can find out about tomorrows race ;) You can track the race at www.ironmanlive.com, bib number 364. Race starts at 0820 Singapore time which is: 420pm West Coast time, 720pm East Coast time, 720am Korea time.
I will add some pictures tonight when I get back to the hotel. Thanks again for all the continued support, with out great family/friends I would not be who I am today or where I am today. Thanks again!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
First race of 2011, within seconds.......
20 Feb 11- Seoul Korea-
Well to start off the 2011 season I set out to run a half marathon up in Seoul. One of the best days weather wise to have race for this part of the year, so the day started out great with awesome weather. The morning was a little chilly and down in the 40's but by the end of the race I think we may have reached low 50's with a light wind. Training has been going good up to this point, thanks to having a great coach and structure in my training. I will blog more about how the whole being coached online is sometime in the near future.
I went into the race with a plan that coach had laid out and if executed properly I could PR by a few seconds. I looked at this as being a little optimistic for this early in the season and wanted to just put in a solid workout, which meant executing the plan. I went out nice and "slow" for the first 5K and sped up throughout the remained of the race. I ran with a Korean lady who normally wins the female overall title at a majority of the half marathon races. I stuck with her till the half way point, just by coincidence. This is when I started feeling good and was able to drop down to where I needed to be. I missed my mark at the 15K split by about 25 seconds, and knew the next 5K was where I was going to make some money on people. I had paced right and felt good going into the last 5K. Then came the wall, no not the normal wall that hits during a marathon but the wall of people.
Korea is known for having many races on one course, remember back to when I got lost ;) Well they had a 10K, 1/2 Marathon, 32K and Full Marathon all on the same running path along the Han River. The 32K/Full went out the opposite direction but ended up coming back in our direction on the same out and back section we had ran on. So we had 32K/Full runners head at us and then the best part was the 10K runners who were say 55:00 to 1:05 pace 10K'ers running with us. All on what you could possibly squeeze 4 people in each lane and maybe one skinny guy down the middle. Well in Korea I wouldn't consider myself skinny, so trying to squeeze down the middle lane was where the fun began. For the last 5K I had to fight traffic in both directions and avoid hitting people coming at me and avoiding to run over people moving with me, but at a slower pace.
Lets just say the last 5K I did not run the pace I needed to to execute the plan, could I of if there wasn't a human traffic jam for the last 5K? Who knows, but what I do know is that if I would of seen someone from my race within striking distance I would have ran them down. So to the next point, the course was so crowded I had no clue where anyone was. I knew I was sitting in the top 10 but couldn't see anyone identifiable in front of me from my race. There was way too many 10Kers to identify if there was a half person ahead. Long story short, I missed 5th place by 6 seconds and 4th by 26 seconds. Could I of ran down 4th? Who knows, but I am pretty sure I would of caught that guy that was 6 seconds up. What did I miss out on? A pretty cool trophy and a $200 fuji digital camera :( What to do differently next time, run hard the whole way so you can't complain about missing top 5 by 6 seconds.
Time- 1:20:34
Overall-6th/838
Pace- 6:09min/mil
Everything is about the experience and what you gain from it, so missing that by 6 seconds was a great learning experience that I will remember for awhile. Below are some pictures of the race courtesy of Michael Onofray, who was kind enough to take pictures and cheer us on instead of tearing up the race course. Congrats to my new friend Jason Brosseau on his first race in Korea and his first win in Korea! He runs for the AF Marathon and Cross Country Team and is out here for a few weeks working. It is amazing how small the AF is as we both have a lot of the same friends and know a lot of the same people.
Pre Race pics
Trying to look over and see if a guy that was running "fast" was a 10Ker or half marathoner. He was only a 10Ker.
Coming down the finishing chute. Olypmic Stadium track!
Drinking some Hammer Recoverite and working on my tan. Some French dude later told me to put my shirt on because it wasn't poper. Where in the world are people not tanning in February, I thought 50 degrees and sunny was ideal temps for it ;) Needless to say I respected my elder and put my shirt back on. He did however beat me in the race and is probably in his 50's. When I congratulated after the race he acted like he didn't understand me, but he sure spoke clear English when telling me to put my shirt on.
Post race talk with Norah the Great! She told off the French dude when I was grabbing my shirt to put back on. Wish I would of stuck around to listen to him get chewed out by her. Thanks Norah for having my back!
Well to start off the 2011 season I set out to run a half marathon up in Seoul. One of the best days weather wise to have race for this part of the year, so the day started out great with awesome weather. The morning was a little chilly and down in the 40's but by the end of the race I think we may have reached low 50's with a light wind. Training has been going good up to this point, thanks to having a great coach and structure in my training. I will blog more about how the whole being coached online is sometime in the near future.
I went into the race with a plan that coach had laid out and if executed properly I could PR by a few seconds. I looked at this as being a little optimistic for this early in the season and wanted to just put in a solid workout, which meant executing the plan. I went out nice and "slow" for the first 5K and sped up throughout the remained of the race. I ran with a Korean lady who normally wins the female overall title at a majority of the half marathon races. I stuck with her till the half way point, just by coincidence. This is when I started feeling good and was able to drop down to where I needed to be. I missed my mark at the 15K split by about 25 seconds, and knew the next 5K was where I was going to make some money on people. I had paced right and felt good going into the last 5K. Then came the wall, no not the normal wall that hits during a marathon but the wall of people.
Korea is known for having many races on one course, remember back to when I got lost ;) Well they had a 10K, 1/2 Marathon, 32K and Full Marathon all on the same running path along the Han River. The 32K/Full went out the opposite direction but ended up coming back in our direction on the same out and back section we had ran on. So we had 32K/Full runners head at us and then the best part was the 10K runners who were say 55:00 to 1:05 pace 10K'ers running with us. All on what you could possibly squeeze 4 people in each lane and maybe one skinny guy down the middle. Well in Korea I wouldn't consider myself skinny, so trying to squeeze down the middle lane was where the fun began. For the last 5K I had to fight traffic in both directions and avoid hitting people coming at me and avoiding to run over people moving with me, but at a slower pace.
Lets just say the last 5K I did not run the pace I needed to to execute the plan, could I of if there wasn't a human traffic jam for the last 5K? Who knows, but what I do know is that if I would of seen someone from my race within striking distance I would have ran them down. So to the next point, the course was so crowded I had no clue where anyone was. I knew I was sitting in the top 10 but couldn't see anyone identifiable in front of me from my race. There was way too many 10Kers to identify if there was a half person ahead. Long story short, I missed 5th place by 6 seconds and 4th by 26 seconds. Could I of ran down 4th? Who knows, but I am pretty sure I would of caught that guy that was 6 seconds up. What did I miss out on? A pretty cool trophy and a $200 fuji digital camera :( What to do differently next time, run hard the whole way so you can't complain about missing top 5 by 6 seconds.
Time- 1:20:34
Overall-6th/838
Pace- 6:09min/mil
Everything is about the experience and what you gain from it, so missing that by 6 seconds was a great learning experience that I will remember for awhile. Below are some pictures of the race courtesy of Michael Onofray, who was kind enough to take pictures and cheer us on instead of tearing up the race course. Congrats to my new friend Jason Brosseau on his first race in Korea and his first win in Korea! He runs for the AF Marathon and Cross Country Team and is out here for a few weeks working. It is amazing how small the AF is as we both have a lot of the same friends and know a lot of the same people.
Pre Race pics
Trying to look over and see if a guy that was running "fast" was a 10Ker or half marathoner. He was only a 10Ker.
Coming down the finishing chute. Olypmic Stadium track!
Drinking some Hammer Recoverite and working on my tan. Some French dude later told me to put my shirt on because it wasn't poper. Where in the world are people not tanning in February, I thought 50 degrees and sunny was ideal temps for it ;) Needless to say I respected my elder and put my shirt back on. He did however beat me in the race and is probably in his 50's. When I congratulated after the race he acted like he didn't understand me, but he sure spoke clear English when telling me to put my shirt on.
Post race talk with Norah the Great! She told off the French dude when I was grabbing my shirt to put back on. Wish I would of stuck around to listen to him get chewed out by her. Thanks Norah for having my back!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
2010 in Review
11 Feb 11- Osan AB, South Korea-
Well it has been over a month now since the new year and I have put this off far too long. So with the new year well underway I figured I better do a quick review of 2010. It was an interesting year which had its ups and downs, but mostly ups.
Well the start of 2010 was interesting, in Turkey, the land of NO racing. I believe 2010 was a year that I had little motivation in the beginning of the year due to knowing there was not a lot of racing to look forward to. I mean I had Wildflower to look forward to and that was a good way to start the year, but the middle of the year was dull in the sense of racing. I took that time to really focus and train for marathon #3 and the return to Korea. I knew coming back to Korea would offer me the option to race A LOT. That was probably the one thing that hurt going into the marathon was that I raced a lot leading into it. I needed those races though to feel fulfilled for the year, I just didn't get enough in early in the year and enjoy racing and being able to compete more than anything.
A few things I learned through 2010 was that if I dedicated myself to something I can achieve my goals. Going Sub 3 at the Chuncheon Marathon was the big goal of the year, after not being able to attend AF Marathon. I put in the miles and had a good plan going in, thanks to Elissa. Training in Turkey went great for the marathon due to having a consistent training partner who was able to push me on a daily/weekly basis. I concentrated on getting the work done and actually focused on going sub-3. My other marathons were more less spur of the moment, under trained lets see what I can do races. Chuncheon I had a purpose going there, I wanted to show that I had put in the work and I proved to myself that hard work pays off.
So with accomplishing that I wanted to reach for something bigger in 2011. I wanted to step up and go the full distance in Triathlon and attempt my first IRONMAN. I am a little young and under experienced in the sport overall, so I knew some things would have to be done to make this a successful attempt. I have signed up with Team TBB Online Coaching and am now being coached by Scott Defilippis. This all started in December of 2010, and what a difference having a coach makes. I will write a seprate blog about having an online coach soon. So at the end of 2010 I started focusing on 2011. Below are some goals for 2011, in order of importance athletically:
-Arrive to IM China in good health to compete in my first IM
-Finish my first IM
-Finish in the top 10 in all races entered throughout Korea
-Win an Overall Olympic Distance Race in Korea
-Qualify for Kona (not by rolldown)
-Go Sub 10 at IM China
This year the focus is obviously on IM China(and hopefully Kona). A lot of people have said just concentrate on finishing your first IM, well I am going full steam ahead and wanting more than to just finish. I have set high goals and hope to achieve my goals by being prepared for anything that the year throws at me. Staying focused throughout this year and managing my time will be the key to success this year. I am trying to juggle a full time military job (which in Korea can mean working 7-20 days straight at times, 12 hour days), completing 8 college classes this year, and training 12-20 hours a week. So to say the least I have a full plate.
Here is a brief review on some stats from 2010:
At UVAS OLY Tri getting the bike ready with my Dad.
Probably the highlight of my year. Seeing my 7 year old little sister run a 9 minute mile and win her race!
The family post Wildflower. Was glad that my Aunt, Uncle and cousins finally were able to see me race.
First race back in Korea. Awesome Triathlon monument as well, my name should now be on the back of the monument with my AG win there.
Well it has been over a month now since the new year and I have put this off far too long. So with the new year well underway I figured I better do a quick review of 2010. It was an interesting year which had its ups and downs, but mostly ups.
Well the start of 2010 was interesting, in Turkey, the land of NO racing. I believe 2010 was a year that I had little motivation in the beginning of the year due to knowing there was not a lot of racing to look forward to. I mean I had Wildflower to look forward to and that was a good way to start the year, but the middle of the year was dull in the sense of racing. I took that time to really focus and train for marathon #3 and the return to Korea. I knew coming back to Korea would offer me the option to race A LOT. That was probably the one thing that hurt going into the marathon was that I raced a lot leading into it. I needed those races though to feel fulfilled for the year, I just didn't get enough in early in the year and enjoy racing and being able to compete more than anything.
A few things I learned through 2010 was that if I dedicated myself to something I can achieve my goals. Going Sub 3 at the Chuncheon Marathon was the big goal of the year, after not being able to attend AF Marathon. I put in the miles and had a good plan going in, thanks to Elissa. Training in Turkey went great for the marathon due to having a consistent training partner who was able to push me on a daily/weekly basis. I concentrated on getting the work done and actually focused on going sub-3. My other marathons were more less spur of the moment, under trained lets see what I can do races. Chuncheon I had a purpose going there, I wanted to show that I had put in the work and I proved to myself that hard work pays off.
So with accomplishing that I wanted to reach for something bigger in 2011. I wanted to step up and go the full distance in Triathlon and attempt my first IRONMAN. I am a little young and under experienced in the sport overall, so I knew some things would have to be done to make this a successful attempt. I have signed up with Team TBB Online Coaching and am now being coached by Scott Defilippis. This all started in December of 2010, and what a difference having a coach makes. I will write a seprate blog about having an online coach soon. So at the end of 2010 I started focusing on 2011. Below are some goals for 2011, in order of importance athletically:
-Arrive to IM China in good health to compete in my first IM
-Finish my first IM
-Finish in the top 10 in all races entered throughout Korea
-Win an Overall Olympic Distance Race in Korea
-Qualify for Kona (not by rolldown)
-Go Sub 10 at IM China
This year the focus is obviously on IM China(and hopefully Kona). A lot of people have said just concentrate on finishing your first IM, well I am going full steam ahead and wanting more than to just finish. I have set high goals and hope to achieve my goals by being prepared for anything that the year throws at me. Staying focused throughout this year and managing my time will be the key to success this year. I am trying to juggle a full time military job (which in Korea can mean working 7-20 days straight at times, 12 hour days), completing 8 college classes this year, and training 12-20 hours a week. So to say the least I have a full plate.
Here is a brief review on some stats from 2010:
2010 Race Statistics 1 Jan-31 Dec
23 Races Entered
8 Overall 1st Place Wins
5 Age Group Wins
14 Top 5’s
Races Entered Breakdown
1 Track Meet
2 5K’s
4 10K’s
3 ½ Marathons
1 8 Mile Time Trials (Bike)
1 20K Hill Climb (Bike)
2 Sprint Duathlons
2 Sprint Triathlons
3 Olympic Distance Triathlons
1 Half IM’s
1 Full Marathon
Training Stats 1Jan10-31Dec10
Swim- 58.8 Miles/94.6KM’s/34h43m
Bike- 2,629 Miles/4,231KM’s/151h34m
Run- 1,116.8 Miles/1,797KM’s/142h03m
Total-3,805.6 Miles/6,124KM’s/328h20m/13d16h19m
Some interesting things about the above data: I decreased my bike mileage quite a bit and did not feel like I lost a lot of fitness on the bike. My run mileage increased by quite a bit and I gained a lot of speed and fitness on the run. My swim mileage is more of something like what a kid in elementary school swims on his/her club team. In the first 42 days of this year I have already swam half of what I did last year, so I know where my weakness is and I am now putting in the work to improve my swim.
Overall I believe 2010 was a great year considering how it started and where I was. Coming back to Korea was something that I really appreciated and knowing that I am in a place that I can succeed surrounded by some great people. I can't wait for the 2011 race season to start and get things rolling.
Thanks again to all of the support from family, friends and fellow competitors. As long as I can inspire people to be active and live a healthy lifestyle I feel that I have accomplished something. Thanks again for all of the support!
Below are some pictures from throughout the year:
At UVAS OLY Tri getting the bike ready with my Dad.
Probably the highlight of my year. Seeing my 7 year old little sister run a 9 minute mile and win her race!
The family post Wildflower. Was glad that my Aunt, Uncle and cousins finally were able to see me race.
First race back in Korea. Awesome Triathlon monument as well, my name should now be on the back of the monument with my AG win there.
Chuncheon around mile 10.
Monday, December 27, 2010
XMas Eve Macgyver Project
24 Dec 10- Osan AB South Korea
Well XMas eve brought me an SRM in the mail that I had ordered about a month prior. I had mailed it to my buddy Eric who lives in Colorado near the SRM shop. I had the batteries replaced in both the computer and cranks. Thanks to Eric it saved me some time and headache of having them shipped here first then having to ship them back to the states.
Since it was my first SRM I had my buddy Zach come over and help me out so I didn't screw anything up. It took us about an hour and a half to get it all hooked up and ops checked. A little longer than expected but it worked and we didn't have any major problems. Being a triathlete for some reason I wanted to be a perfectionist and make sure all the wires were routed cleanly and that it looked clean.
I really didn't think about getting rid of my Garmin Forerunner 305, but hadn't really thought about where it was going to go on the tri bike. Once we had it all setup is when I started thinking about how I was going to get my "cockpit" all setup on the tri bike. With nothing better to do on Xmas eve the project began........
Step 1- Remove 305 quick release kit from the stem and figure a way to get it up in between the bars.
Step 2- Remove water bottle holder in between aero bars and reverse it to where the bottle ejects towards my body.
Step 3- Hook the SRM Computer (PCV) up with velcro on the back and put velcro on the aero bars.
Step 4- Had to undo all the bar tape on the aero extensions and jimmy rig up some zip ties to the aero extensions for the quick release bike mount.
Step 5- Re-wrap the extensions and make sure everything was in place and worked properly.
The whole process ended up taking about 45 minutes once I had figured out how I wanted it.
Below are some pictures of the before and after. When I re wrap the bars and re route cables before the beginning of the season I will take photos of each step.
I then use the setup pictured above for my cockpit setup. In that water bottle I keep my electrolyte drink which is either Cytomax or Hammer Heed to start with. After that I use whatever they have on course.
I then have one bottle in the downtube which I use as a concentrated Perpetum or Sustatined Energy bottle. It holds all of my calories with 4 scoops and then 2 gel servings. Below is a picture of the overall setup, prior to my cockpit setup up front changing.
I use this setup for 70.3's/Half Ironmans and plan on using it for my first full IM in May. I will have an extra concentrated bottle for my downtube at special needs.
When I race Oly/Sprints I take the rear bottle off and move the tools to the downtube and just have a single bottle of Hammer Heed or Cytomax in the aero bars.
If you have any questions about any of the above setups feel free to email me and I can take more detailed photos or answer any questions.
Well XMas eve brought me an SRM in the mail that I had ordered about a month prior. I had mailed it to my buddy Eric who lives in Colorado near the SRM shop. I had the batteries replaced in both the computer and cranks. Thanks to Eric it saved me some time and headache of having them shipped here first then having to ship them back to the states.
Since it was my first SRM I had my buddy Zach come over and help me out so I didn't screw anything up. It took us about an hour and a half to get it all hooked up and ops checked. A little longer than expected but it worked and we didn't have any major problems. Being a triathlete for some reason I wanted to be a perfectionist and make sure all the wires were routed cleanly and that it looked clean.
I really didn't think about getting rid of my Garmin Forerunner 305, but hadn't really thought about where it was going to go on the tri bike. Once we had it all setup is when I started thinking about how I was going to get my "cockpit" all setup on the tri bike. With nothing better to do on Xmas eve the project began........
Step 1- Remove 305 quick release kit from the stem and figure a way to get it up in between the bars.
Step 2- Remove water bottle holder in between aero bars and reverse it to where the bottle ejects towards my body.
Step 3- Hook the SRM Computer (PCV) up with velcro on the back and put velcro on the aero bars.
Step 4- Had to undo all the bar tape on the aero extensions and jimmy rig up some zip ties to the aero extensions for the quick release bike mount.
Step 5- Re-wrap the extensions and make sure everything was in place and worked properly.
The whole process ended up taking about 45 minutes once I had figured out how I wanted it.
Below are some pictures of the before and after. When I re wrap the bars and re route cables before the beginning of the season I will take photos of each step.
The before setup. Garmin Forerunner 305 setup on the stem with the quick release kit. Bottle cage is just zip tied to the aero extensions
The new setup with the 305 at the top, then the PCV and then the water bottle now exiting towards the back.
The two red zip ties are where I had them on the old setup except they wrapped around the stem. Now they are just there and each zip tie on the aero extensions hold it in "air". It leans quite a ways forward and you have to pull it back towards you to mount the 305 in the quick release and then it sits fine in between the bars. My bars are a little narrower than the 305, and this might be why it works so well.
The bottom view of the zip ties.
The new setup with the 305 at the top, then the PCV and then the water bottle now exiting towards the back.
The two red zip ties are where I had them on the old setup except they wrapped around the stem. Now they are just there and each zip tie on the aero extensions hold it in "air". It leans quite a ways forward and you have to pull it back towards you to mount the 305 in the quick release and then it sits fine in between the bars. My bars are a little narrower than the 305, and this might be why it works so well.
The bottom view of the zip ties.The next project was to hook up the wiring harness to my road bike. The second harness I had did not have the nice mounting bracket that the first one had. The normal bracket is easily attached under the bottom bracket with the screw that is used to route your derailleur cables. I couldn't figure out what else to use so I came up with an initial plan of using zip ties.
I took two small zip ties and slid them through the two holes in the magnet pickup device. I then slid them under the bottom bracket mount that is already there for the cables to be routed. I then tightened down the screws and it held the sensor in place just fine. Once I put the cranks on zip tie heads rubbed on the cranks so that idea was out the window.
Next I walked around the room and thought about what else I could possibly use to make a mounting bracket. Well on Xmas eve you get some crazy ideas. I looked at my floss plastic case and figured if I cut it apart I could possibly make it into a bracket. Using limited tools of a cable cutter and knife I went to work. I cracked the first side I was going to use and ended up getting stuck with the back of the case as my only option.
I sculpted it out into what is similar to a field goal shape. At the end of the "posts" I made the end larger though so that it would keep the sensor in place and would not slip out. The bracket is kind of big but I didn't want to crack it and figured it could possibly work. Sure enough after a lot of cutting and sculpting I had a final product. I hooked it up and eye balled where I needed to put a whole so that the screw would hold it in place. I used the knife and put a whole in the "bracket" and screwed it in. Put the cranks on and luckily nothing rubbed and the sensor was picking up cadence and power once I got it on the trainer.
So if you have time on your hands and want a late night project take a floss case and a few tools and have at it. Beats spending $70 on a new wiring harness and new version of the bracket or maybe I just don't know where there is an accessory that makes the old harness work.
The floss case that I used:
Below are some pictures of the bracket:
I took two small zip ties and slid them through the two holes in the magnet pickup device. I then slid them under the bottom bracket mount that is already there for the cables to be routed. I then tightened down the screws and it held the sensor in place just fine. Once I put the cranks on zip tie heads rubbed on the cranks so that idea was out the window.
Next I walked around the room and thought about what else I could possibly use to make a mounting bracket. Well on Xmas eve you get some crazy ideas. I looked at my floss plastic case and figured if I cut it apart I could possibly make it into a bracket. Using limited tools of a cable cutter and knife I went to work. I cracked the first side I was going to use and ended up getting stuck with the back of the case as my only option.
I sculpted it out into what is similar to a field goal shape. At the end of the "posts" I made the end larger though so that it would keep the sensor in place and would not slip out. The bracket is kind of big but I didn't want to crack it and figured it could possibly work. Sure enough after a lot of cutting and sculpting I had a final product. I hooked it up and eye balled where I needed to put a whole so that the screw would hold it in place. I used the knife and put a whole in the "bracket" and screwed it in. Put the cranks on and luckily nothing rubbed and the sensor was picking up cadence and power once I got it on the trainer.
So if you have time on your hands and want a late night project take a floss case and a few tools and have at it. Beats spending $70 on a new wiring harness and new version of the bracket or maybe I just don't know where there is an accessory that makes the old harness work.
The floss case that I used:
Below are some pictures of the bracket:
The final project was done some time ago, but post keep popping up on Slowtwitch in regards to bottle setups for different races. I figured I would add my setup to this blog so that if people wanted a reference with pictures I could just post this link.
I have taken a cheap Profile Designs water bottle for my rear mount (Excel Sports has them for $5.95) This back bottle holds a multi tool, tube, pump, C02 cart, and C02 Adapter. I also have a spare tube under my ISM Adamo Saddle. I took 4 zip ties and hooked the cage up to the seat post. Two of which are hooked just on the bottle cage in a vertical manner. The other two go from the two on the bottle cage to the two holes in the seat post. Below are two pictures of the setup.
I have taken a cheap Profile Designs water bottle for my rear mount (Excel Sports has them for $5.95) This back bottle holds a multi tool, tube, pump, C02 cart, and C02 Adapter. I also have a spare tube under my ISM Adamo Saddle. I took 4 zip ties and hooked the cage up to the seat post. Two of which are hooked just on the bottle cage in a vertical manner. The other two go from the two on the bottle cage to the two holes in the seat post. Below are two pictures of the setup.
I then use the setup pictured above for my cockpit setup. In that water bottle I keep my electrolyte drink which is either Cytomax or Hammer Heed to start with. After that I use whatever they have on course.
I then have one bottle in the downtube which I use as a concentrated Perpetum or Sustatined Energy bottle. It holds all of my calories with 4 scoops and then 2 gel servings. Below is a picture of the overall setup, prior to my cockpit setup up front changing.
I use this setup for 70.3's/Half Ironmans and plan on using it for my first full IM in May. I will have an extra concentrated bottle for my downtube at special needs.When I race Oly/Sprints I take the rear bottle off and move the tools to the downtube and just have a single bottle of Hammer Heed or Cytomax in the aero bars.
If you have any questions about any of the above setups feel free to email me and I can take more detailed photos or answer any questions.
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