Boulder Peak

Ok, wow!!! This blog is a little late, I apologize to all 4 of my readers. I hope you don't cancel your subscription to this one of a kind blog, OK.....Good!!!! Lets get to the race. This past weeke.....I mean a few weekends ago I was back in beautiful Boulder, CO for the Boulder Peak Olympic triathlon, which is now the Boulder 5150 Series. This change only means its a qualifier for the US Championship in Des Moines, Iowa. Other then that its still the same race course, with the same bike course climbing up Old Stage road, if you haven't been up Old Stage, I like to compare it to parts of Little Park rd here in G.J....Damn Steep!!!!

Swim:  23:14  (2010 swim time: 25:46)
Alright, the swim was pretty smooth sailing. Again, I lined up on the far right with very little company (which is always nice and rare). The main goal for this was to stay on course this time, it was a little difficult as we swam straight into the Sun's path...Blinding!!! Eventually we made a turn around a buoy away from the Sun, from here sighting of buoys was easier but the waters soon came congested with the slower swimmers in the waves before ours. Can't complain to much as this happens in every race. Came out of the water in 23:14 just behind the leaders.

T1: Coming out of the water I slowly found my land legs and made my way in and out of transition.


Bike: 1:05:56   (2010 bike time: 1:13:17)
The first 6 miles of the bike heading of Boulder Reservoir are all up-hill. I knew coming into this race that athletes would hold back a little to prepare for the climb up Old Stage Rd at about mile 4.  Coach Tony DeBoom gave me the green light to be aggressive in these first few miles....Roger That!!!! I made my way up Old Stage only thinking to myself ..."dang this is a lot harder then I remember"...I made it atop the hill and I can only remember that I was about to lose my breakfast from that morning.....No worries I kept it down. The rest of the ride was what seemed to me all down hill with only a few rollers. I put my head down and mashed the gears to get me back home to T2.

T2: Came flying off the bike to get my running shoes on and out I was.

Run: 41:48  (2010 run time: 45:06)

This is the part where everything seemed to Sssllllooooooowww down a bit. After about half a mile I found my running legs. The goal was to find a good rhythm early in the run then at the turnaround/halfway point I could open the stride more and push it to the finish. This run is all on dirt so it makes it harder to find a good grip, so you really need to rely on your turnover. I did the best I could for this run, everything seemed in order besides my stomach. I felt I was running a little heavy in the belly. I think it has to do with my pre-race nutrition. Something I hope to change by the time Boulder 70.3 comes. Anyways I slowly pushed the pace back to the finish in a time of 2:13:59.

Overall: 2:13:59, 7th in age and 57 Overall out of 1500.  (2010: 2:26:31, 21st in age and 131 Overall or 1500)

Ok, so if you haven't noticed I knocked off about 14min from my time last year. This is HUGE and I am super happy about this. I think the best part was leaving my coach speechless for a few seconds when I called  to tell him the results. =) Up next is Boulder 70.3 in August. Crunch Time!!!!!

Boulder Sprint

Had a good effort this past weekend in Boulder, CO for the 5430 Boulder Sprint. 750m Swim, 26mile Bike and a 5k run. With only 6 days of rest and recovery from my previous race at Boise 70.3 I was surprised how well I recovered, this gave me a good indication that my race fitness is on par. I also came into this race very relaxed, my only expectations for this race were to improve on last years times and not worry about my placement or anybody else race. This kinda of attitude seemed to work out well for this race.

Swim: 11:50
An improvement from last year, not much but it was better. I opted to line up on the far inside of the buoy's and to my surprise I was all alone with only a few other athletes near my bubble. This made for a very clean and bump/bruise-free start to the race. I wrestled only a few athletes  but managed to find good open water, but this might have been the problem. At the time I thought I was spotting well, keeping all yellow buoy's on my right, I even spotted a pack of guys from my wave just a few meters ahead. But it wasn't until someone in a kayak was yelling and pointing at us to turn around....WTF!!!!! I popped my head up for a moment and quickly realized that about a dozen of us young and reckless swimmers were cutting the course..... and not on purpose I will say. I just might need to get my eyes checked next time!!! We back tracked about 25m or so and were back on course....kids!!!!!

Bike: 43:02
Into T1 and out I was, now onto the bike. Not too much to talk about here, it was a fast course with little rollers. I found a good rhythm from the start and kept a good pace throughout, a few guys in my age group passed me within a few miles onto the bike course. So I kept the pace with these guys and kept them in my site. So yeah, that's kind of it for the bike....nothing too special though I did improve again on last year.

Run: 19:09
My biggest goal for this race was to finally break the dreaded 20min 5k in a triathlon. Out of T2 I gave my legs a chance to find themselves and smooth into a nice cadence before I found my stride. I pushed hard checking my splits only a few times. With doing Boise 70.3 last week it made these 3miles seem like only a mile. They went fast. So I came down the shoot with a time of 19:09, I was pretty pumped about this. I know some of you might run this time in your sleep, but hey give me a break. This white boy is SLOW!!! So this was a big improvement and I'm happy with how things are slowly coming around for me.

Overall: 1:17:03  25th Overall, 3rd in age.

Up next for Mua is the Boulder Peak. An Olympic distance with a very talented field both Pro and Amateur. Should be a good one.