You Spin Me Round, Like a Record

Friday night under the lights at Alkek Velodrome.  I haven't raced at the velodrome since 2004, and thought it was time to get back at it.  If you are ever on the west side of town on a Friday night, stop by the velodrome for some fun free entertainment.  Racing is broken up into categories, by age and skill.  You earn your skill levels, and they stay with you for life.  So even though I haven't raced in 7 years, I race at that same level now, Cat 3.  Usually you will race in 3-4 different events throughout the night.  Since the Cat 1-2 and 3 fields are small we usually race together.

12 Lap, Point a Lap - Pretty much what it sounds like.  The first rider to cross the line on each lap gets a point.  Total up your points at the end of 12 laps and who ever has the most points wins, 2nd most points gets second and so on.  I sprinted for points on laps 3 and 4, but had no luck. I lost contact with the front group and drifted backwards and latched on with a second group and just spun my legs out. What was I thinking?

Miss-N-Out - Each lap the last rider across the line gets pulled, and is last place and so on until 3 riders are left and they sprint for 1-2-3.  I finished 5th.  I was outflanked and out gunned.

20 lap Scratch Race - This is the simplest to follow.  The first rider to finish wins, 2nd and so on.  I made the break in this race and finished 4th, 1st Cat 3. 

Bayou Bash Relay

As a member of the Al Lawrence running club, I have participated in the Bayou Bash Relay a number of times.  Back in the day it was held out in Sugar Land at the Fluor Daniel Complex.  Now it is held at Rice University with a spectator friendly course.  I completed on a mixed open team with Sarah.  The sun stayed behind the clouds which made the afternoon sun pleasant.  This race is a lot of fun, your relay team of 4 runners, each run 1.9 miles.  2 loops around the football stadium and bike loop.  Afterwards is the HARRA end of the year party with games and food for the whole family. EGG TOSS!

Results

He's Baaaack!

Yes, its like a bad movie that doesn't know only Rocky can have 5 lives.

2 story lines here: First this was my first race back in quite a while. Second, this was the race director’s first race.

Pre-Race: I haven't changed much. I get to the race super early with Sarah. I explain that open bike rack means you choose your spot in transition, so you better get there early so you don't have to lug your bike around. I was one of the first participants, so race officials and body markers weren't ready, but no worries they quickly jumped on me once I was in the corral.

Run: I studied the map, but wasn't quite sure how the 2nd run was going to be done. A lot of other athletes were asking the RD for directions too. A couple brave souls who had done the Tejas triathlon, which uses the same run course, offered up their rabbit services. Too bad those services only lasted the first 400 meters. I had anticipated starting out a bit slowly and then feel a rhythm, but I was like fresh meet and went with the front group from the gun. A few guys got away from me, but went off course, I yelled and got them back on track, but by then they had to chase back to catch me. Then they passed me again, oh well. I felt pretty strong and was happy with my first 3 miles.

Bike: Onto the bike I felt good. The race director had everything on the bike course buttoned up, plenty of police and cones. A sign signaling that the U-Turn around was upcoming would be nice, but no complaints. My legs on the other hand just spun. No real power, just a lot of spinning.

Run: The wheels fell off. My slowest 3 miles ever.

Overall: Pretty happy with my results. I finished 1st in my new age group, 30-34.  I have not ridden outside since 2009??? Wow! It has been too long.

Results
Official Race Photos

Wallow in the Mud!

Its 2010 and I needed a New Years Resolution! Not really, but I am a person that likes to check things off, so I put a new to-do on the list. The HARRA Spring Race Series looked a like good one! A couple of the races I have run before, the others are all new courses for me.

I kicked off the season with the Buffalo Wallow 6k XC race. The temp was in the low 40's and the sun was out to warm the runners bodies. Lets face it, it was cold, and it rained all week so the course was muddy! The neat thing about this race is that it is very spectator friendly. It is a 3-2km loop course. So friends and family can set up right in the middle of the course and see the runners 6 times through out the race. I took it easy the first lap and got into a nice group of a couple others and settled in behind them. On the third loop I felt strong enough to push for a little while, so I picked the pace up a little bit, just enough to break from the group and closed the gap on a couple other runners. I finished with a time of 24:15, my goal was to be under 25 mins. The course has 2 tough hills and is along the bayou between Waugh and Taft.

Congrats to all the other runners, especially all those ALRC members!

Up next is the Bayou City Classic 10k. See you there?

Full Results

Some Flickr Photos courtesy of Hardeep

Official Race photos

HMSA 25K Relay

I got an email from some Al Lawrence running friends who needed a 3rd person to run the 25k relay with them. So I decided I was up to running a 5.2 mile leg and could help them out. My best guess of my fitness was that I would run in the 6:40- 6:45 pace per mile. I ran a bit quicker to turn in a 33:25 split for my 3rd leg, avg. 6:25 pace. It was alot of fun watching and cheering on all the other ALRC runners and Congrats to all those who finished, it was a warm day.

Full Results

Imogene Pass Run

I broke the race up into 3 parts, the first 5.5 miles to lower camp bird, the next 4.5 miles to the summit and then 7 miles downhill to the finish.


The first 5.5 miles are at gradients of 8-15% steep. I was able to jog portions and walk the steeper inclines. I made it to the lower camp bird, mile 5.45 in about 1 hour. That’s an average pace of 12 minute miles.
The next 2.2 miles took me nearly 50 mins, I reached Upper Camp Bird, mile 7.65 in 1:52:50. Heading on towards the summit, the next 2.35 miles took me another 57:50, making my final time to summit 2:50:41. Yes, that is an avg pace of 25 minute miles for 4.5 miles. The Summit is at 13,114 ft of elevation.
I descended the final 7 miles in 1:09:45, an average pace of 10 minute miles. I finished in 4:00:27!
My thoughts about the course. Its hard, period. You are going up a mountain and altitude. Lets be realistic, its hard, really, really hard. The views are incredible, the mountain can be wonderful or down right ugly if it gets cold, windy, wet or snowy. We were fortunate and the weather held. The terrain is rocky. Descending is very technical on the way to Telluride. My legs are sore, but not torn up like they have been in the past after some races. I kept myself in check through out the entire run/walk/hike to be sure I would finish safely. I stopped at every aid station and ate and refueled and took pictures when I could safely handle the camera. The Imogene Pass Run is definitely the hardest event I have done to date. Congrats to both Melissa and Annie who completed the race with me and thanks to all those who provided support and encouragement.

Full Results
Flickr Photos

Track, Tri's and Track

So over the past month I have been busy! I raced in the Friday Night Rice All-Comers Meet June 19. I ran in the mile and ran a post college PR of 5:07, last year was 5:12 and the year before was 5:18. So steadily improving.

I competed in the the Memorial Sugar Land Triathlon put on by Finish Line Sports. This is the same course as Try Andy's, but with a 300m pool swim instead of the 300m lake swim. I have stuck by my non-swim training technique and continued to rock climb to maintain my upper body fitness. I swam within 13 secs of my best swim for 300m, had a pretty fast T1 and then headed out on the bike. I have just been trying to ride consistently over the past month and haven't done any speed work on the bike, and it showed. I averaged 23.6 mph for the 10 mile course, hopefully by the time Try Andy's rolls around I will be closer to 24+mph. T2 was really fast thanks to using my platforms on the bike. My run was so-so. I have not done any brick workouts, but have been doing speed work. I ran a 20:02 for 3 miles. A bit faster than COMBAT tri, but I would really like to see the time closer to 19:30 for Try Andys.

As usual, there was a great showing by the Fort Bend TriPsyclones at the race and as volunteers.

Full Results, Official Race Pics Bib #43, Flickr Photos

With July Starting I will be spending some time at the Alkek Velodrome to work on my bike speed. I hope to also be able to hang in for some Friday night races come Aug/Sept!