Double Race, Double Reports Part 1

Double Race Report! Double weekend of fun!

2013 Bank of China Festival of Sport Sprint Triathlon and Revolution Asia Compressport Splash'n'Dash Aquathon Race 1

Evidently exhausted giving it all I could on the run.

Entering T2 After my worst ever bike split on this course. 

 First triathlon of the season, new bike, new tactics and a new approach. What could go wrong? Evidently everything to do with the bike!

It was a gloomy morning on the 12th of May 2013. The Olympic distance (HKTriathlon Association has an age restriction; OD is only open to anyone >20 years old) had all setoff since 06000-0630. Sprint + fun distances would start between 0730 and 0830. 

I arrived relatively early about an hour and a half early to get a nice long warm up and setup my transition on the maiden race of my 2012 Felt AR2. I made sure I was well hydrated knowing that once the sun came out it would be very hot with high humidity. Knowing that the bike was a full on hill course I had prepared an electrolyte/sugar mix for consumption to reduce chances of me crapping in the last few K's of the bike and the run. 

Swim:

Garmin Connect

Water was icy cold! I had an excellent swim (avg. 1:36/100m) considering that I haven't been training my swim as intensively as my run and bike. Came out the water pleasantly surprised with my time and to find out that I was ahead of one of my coaches! 

T1 was a bit of a mess for me trying to get my race belt clipped on but I made it through. 

Bike:

Garmin Connect
Here's where I failed....or what could have went wrong did go wrong.

1. Flying mount onto my bike: no problems
2. Cycling up the 300m 10% grade slope right at the beginning of the course: no problem
3. Take a sip of electrolytes after the slope: no problem. 

Then......I dropped my bottle after that sip -.-. Great job Brian. I decided not to stop and instead power on...which threw my nutrition plan out of whack since this course was 75% slopes (approx 6-8% grade). 

Finished first lap....looked at the time and I wasn't doing that well. I was 2mins behind my initial goal time and my legs weren't feeling fresh. I felt that familiar twitch that would signify a cramp if I didn't do something. 

I passed where I dropped my bottle on the first lap....and found nothing. A truck had rolled over it. :/ Great. 

Luckily I borrowed a bottle of water from the athlete drafting behind me so at least I had hydration. Managed to hold a higher speed in the second lap.

Run:

Garmin Connect

Both calves cramped up immediately coming off the bike. Not a good sign! Spent 30s stretching it out and limped on. Held a max. pace of 4:30 and focused on catching 1 person after another; grinding 1 meter after another.

Hardest Sprint I've actually done in ages. Mainly my fault for dropping the bottle.....and need to improve on hill courses.

Total time: 1:18:33

Stay tuned for Part 2: Race Report on Revolution Asia Compressport Splash'n'Dash Aquathon Race 1

Cupcakes, End of Term and Lactic Threshold

End of Term 1 

Just ended term 1 of school today! Holiday break will last for 2 weeks before starting up on the 6th of January 6th 2013. Plenty of time for me to put in extra training sessions before school work load increases once again.

Swimming LT Graded Test

After a 2 day recovery from my stomach bug that I picked up from KFC (Urg. I hope this teaches me to stay off junk food), I finally did another graded test for swimming to get a baseline for a rough lactic threshold for swimming. 

Well what does this mean? The area between data point 3 and 7 is supposed to be where my aerobic and lactic capacity is.....and I'll know if I've improved on that at all through retesting after 4-8weeks of training. Next is a 1000m time trial which I'll schedule sometime next week; perhaps after boxing day. 

Cupcakes

To celebrate last day of term 1 and the year of 2012 I decided to make some cupcakes for some friends and teacher at school. Well let me give you a very big hint on what not to do always....which I do follow at times but not this time as my friends wanted something different this time; never ever use a new recipe when you want to make something perfect. 

I decided to make red velvet cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese icing and boy would I never use that recipe again. For me, it was a recipe for disaster. Here it is for those interested

I know, it's rated very high....but it turned out badly for me.....it could be the brand of food colour that I used since I followed the exact amount listed in the recipe. But for now I'll be sticking to the recipes that I've modified and used successfully. The icing itself isn't bad though, so I'll file that away for future use. 

At least it looks good.....

LT Testing and New Books

Got some new books yesterday! Or well second hand books that are in "like new" condition. Very satisfied  Got them off Amazon then forwarded from my US address to Hong Kong.

Left to right: Breakthrough Swimming, Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance and The Triathlete's Training Bible 2nd Edition

All those books have been suggested by many fellow athletes over at SlowTwitch. A more comprehensive list can be found here.

Quite an interesting read in fact. I only flipped through the swimming and bike maintenance book briefly and have been focusing on the TTB (Triathlete's Training Bible) more. I certainly have learnt more about planning and lactic threshold and tapering. 

I had a PE lesson today where I attempted to do a Graded Test for lactic threshold for swimming but that failed rather miserably as I didn't get enough data. I'll be attempting another graded test tomorrow lunchtime and a following 1000m TT on Thursday to get my pacing and everything in time for the start of my annual training plan which is due to start next Monday. 

Absolutely miserable 

Schedule for tomorrow:

1. Swimming graded test with more data to calculate a rough lactic threshold for swimming
2. Interval training tomorrow after-school or a running graded test to calculate a rough lactic threshold for running.