Tweedle Beetle Tri-Atheletle

I love this!!!

My "real" job is to work with various corporations and help them spread and grow their brand equity via promotional items.  I recently worked on a project for Google where we did a Chrome Cycling Kit and a Maps Cycling Kit.  I used this same vendor to create a two piece Tri Suite for North Lake Physical Therapy Triathlon team.

Hopefully we will have it by the end of the season!!!

	Blue Lake Olympic  6/6/10	Hagg Lake Olympic 7/10/10
PLACE (OVERALL):	178 / 406	64 / 203
NAME:	H, JENSEN	H, JENSEN
AGE:	33	33
SEX:	M	M
TIME:	2:35:03	2:42:17
BRACKET PLACE:	25 / 41	13 / 25
SWIM TIME:	0:32:13	0:30:53
SWIM 100 YD:	1:58	1:53
PLACE AFTER SWIM:	318	126
TRASITION 1:	3:58	3:27
BIKE TIME:	1:09:22	1:15:25
AVE MPH:	21.11 MPH	19.77 MPH
BIKE RANK:	162	52
PLACE AFTER BIKE	224	77
TRASITION 2:	2:57	2:40
RUN TIME:	0:46:33	49.52
AVE MILE SPLIT:	7:29	8:02
RUN RANK	125	60
PLACE AFTER RUN:	178	64

***http://www.racecenter.com/results/

*** PLEASE NOTE CORRECTIONS TO BLUE LAKE OLYMPIC DISTANCE (I READ THE RESULTS WRONG...) WHOOPS! ***


The day started in stark contrast to Blue Lake Triathlon just a little more than one month ago.   The sky was blue, I pulled on my shorts and drove (enjoyed the windows rolled down the entire drive) out to Hagg Lake.  I arrived early and things went as smooth as they possibly could - I even had time for some meditation and visualization.


We were in the water at 8:00 AM sharp my my wave was second at 8:01.  The water was brilliantly warm and the toughest part of the swim was the elbow which clipped my nose about 3/4 of the way out to the first buoy.  I felt strong throughout the swim, although hindsight being 20/20 - I should have pushed it a bit harder.  I swear there was a current... somebody mentioned it but I can't be sure.

My "imaginary" Hagg lake.

Okay... the bike leg..
That was really hard...really, really hard..  I feel like I did well but... DAMN!!! That was really hard!  Lets remember that "Hard" is relative and I suppose that being "relative" it has to be compared to a reference point.  Lets call this my "expectation".   Compared to my expectation, Hagg Lake was really, really hard.   The course was described to me as rolling hills (the start of my reference point troubles).  This is how "I" expect rolling hills to look.


I sort of pictured grassy plains with, well... rolling hills, maybe 50 or so feet of elevation change - maybe even a hundred feet.  The kind of ride where you stand up to peddle and maintain your speed, but for the most part, maybe even the entire part, you are locked onto your aerobars, cranking out 20+MPH speeds, mile after joyful miles.  Let me be very clear... THIS IS NOT HAGG LAKE.

Stage 8 Tour de France

Brutal climbs...
Leg and Lung punishing accents...
Terrifyingly fast descents....
Riders and runners dropping like flies in the heat of a blistering summer day...




Okay, Okay.... this is actually the profile for stage 8 of the 2010 Tour de France.   Sorry Lance, I know you are reading this and I hate to bring up bad memories.  I guess the good news is my ride was MUCH better than yours.  It really looked like this from my vantage point!!! Honestly... It did!


Actually, what the bike leg really look like with this:


For the Olympic Distance the race was two loops around the lake with a bit of a dog leg mid way.  Total distance was nearly exactly 24 miles.  Personally, I went out too strong - finding myself really having to push on the second loop and then struggling through the run especially on the uphill sections.  


On the first loop, after crossing over the damn, there was a hard right hand turn which I nearly went down on as I came into the turn way too fast.  It is one thing to be sliding sideways on a mountain bike and something entirely different to be sliding sideways on a road bike with 120 psi tires chattering through the corner.  After a quick and very lucky recovery I reentered the group, nearly colliding with a rider who saw an advantage and went to take it on my right side (I was a bit annoyed by this) whom I never expected to be there.  I got back on the bars fairly quickly but was seriously shaken - if my heart rate wasn't already at 180 - it quickly found its way there during the slide and it was tough to get it back down to where I needed it.  The race wasn't without a bit of blood though - one woman went down hard and required the use of emergency medical (fire and paramedic).  Lets hope she was all right! The rest of the bike leg was without event and I finished with a decent time of 1:15:25 and average speed of 19.77 mph.  


The run leg of the course was a 3.125 miles out, 3.125 miles back on road course.  The same course as the bike leg (yup, this was hilly too!).  I was stiff coming off the bike and felt like it took forever for the gels to kick in that I scarfed down at the bike to run transition.  Each hill seemed to slow me more (even though my splits were within seconds of each other).  Where I felt like I struggled was both legging it out and recovering on the downhill section.  This has always been a strength of mine and a strategy (shorten my stride and grind a consistent pace on the uphill side, then maintaining the same cadence - lengthen my stride, increasing my speed on the downhill).  Not being able to do this really shows that I should have slowed things down on the bike so I could take advantage of my best leg (the run).  My run time was 49:52 with ave mileage splits of 8:02.  This is really where I am looking for improvement at Scoggins Valley Olympic Distance next month.


Did I do well?  Ya, I think I did.  I have to keep reminding myself that when the race was ran (July 10, 2010) I was less than 6 months out of spine surgery.  There is really no question though that this race was really special to me because it was to be the first opportunity for my two boys and my wife to watch me race.  I can't describe the feeling of passing the three people you love the most in the world, hearing them cheer you on as you run or cycling past them.  The feeling of picking up my two boys after crossing the finish line.  Its really amazing and makes me feel so grateful.



Thanks North Lake Physical Therapy for sponsoring my involvement in the race, but most of all - thank you to my wife, Shannon for sitting on the side of the road, breaking up fights between our two toddlers in 80 degree temperatures for 2:42:17.  She gets first place for dealing with a much tougher race than I had!