March 6 - Napa Marathon - 26.2 miles

I could write a lot here. How I struggled before when training towards my first marathon. How I failed several times to train significantly over the half-marathon distance. About my workload. And and and. Instead I just give the highlights.

It seems there is something not quite right with my foot and each time I start running really long distances it starts hurting. Well, finally somebody figured out that I actually need custom orthotics for running long distance. And the problem didn't quite disappear but it became easy to manage. The work load and lots of crappy weather in the spring posed another problem in that I didn't train enough. Yet I did succeed (stubborness prevailed). Although my longest training run was only about 16 miles and 2.5 hours, I successfully managed to complete the Napa Marathon yesterday. It took me longer than I had hoped (4 hours 41 minutes) but I finished. It was very hard in the end, which comes as no suprise if you extend your running distance by more than 2 hours in one leap (or should I say: in one hobble?)

Napa valley is gorgeous at this time of year and this race has spectacular scenery. I highly recommend it. Below a photo of the very nice long-sleeve cool-max shirt the finishers got as well as a photo of the finisher medal. The middle part of the medal rotates, which makes this a very neat toy :)

So now I've finally done my first marathon. Will I do another one? I'm not so sure. If somebody had asked me right after the race I definitely would have said "no way I'll ever do this again". One day later I feel surprisingly good. I can actually get up from my chair without help and even walk around in a seemingly human way (the frankenstein walk was what I did yesterday) I even manage to climb stairs, imagine that ;)

So I don't know. I've proved to myself that I can do it. Good. I might decide at one point I'd like to do another one, one where I actually put the required training in and check if I can do it in close to 4 hours (which would be the time I could have made if I had tried this like 1.5 years ago when I was in top shape). But for that I have to start doing some speed work again, and I haven't done any speed work in 1.5 years. It's no wonder I'm so slow. Back then I was able to run a 10k with 7.5 minute/miles. Yesterday at the marathon I averaged about 10.75 minute/miles, which is much much slower. So there is potential. But I will need to work on realizing that potential. And with my current work load... unlikely.

So I assume this year will be "the year of a few and slow races". Stay tuned. Next stop - Wildflower...

April 10- San Jose Mercury 10k

... or rather the San Jose Mercury 10k, a nice, totally flat race through downtown SJ that I did several times. Actually this race was also my very first 10k I ever tried. What is interesting how downtown San Jose has changed over the years - in particular the area the race first goes through. It was a real dump when I first ran the race and now it's a pretty upscale, revitalized part of town.

I didn't have high hopes for this race as I didn't do ANY speedwork this year yet. Well, actually I barely ran since the marathon! The race literally was my only workout in 1.5 weeks! This is not a good time for Andreas, the athlete. Too much stress at work and if there is a chance to do something the weather often sucks and I paint instead. Despite all of that, my time was actually quite good: 48.48 for the 10k which is just about a minute slower than my PR for a 10k. And under these circumstances that result is quite extraordinary :)

On monday after the race I tried to do some more sport, went on a short bike ride and my chain broke! Waaaa!! Just what I need when I have so few opportunities to ride before WildFlower (in 2.5 weeks). On the other hand, I'd rather have the chain break in a short training ride, than in a long one where I'm miles away from anything or even in the race...

OK, next stop Wildflower...

May 1st - Wildflower Olympic Triathlon

It's hard to believe, but I made it! This is a pretty hard race after all and I was not only badly prepared... I would rather say I was not prepared at all!!! Despite that, I managed to finish the race and even in a pretty decent time!! It helped a lot that this year the run course was a bit easier than the last time I did it (they took out dreaded beach hill - relief!).

My swim time was close to that from 2 years ago, as was my bike time. My run was a lot slower and I also wasted a lot of time in T1 because I felt really dizzy. But it added up to just a few minutes longer than the first time I did it (factor in, though, that the run was easier this time). Overall I'm very happy with the result because I was not convinced I'd be able to actually finish the race.

May 15 - UVAS South Bay Triathlon

The South Bay Triathlon in Morgan Hill, CA in UVAS reservoir always was one of my favorite races. It's small race that caps at 800 ish racers, the scenery is spectacular, the water in the reservoir is typically quite nice and the temperature just right. And the course is not super easy, but also not super hard. And it's a bit shorter than a full Olympic so it's an easier one for that already too. In short - a great race.

This year, like with all other races I didn't expect an outstanding performance due to lack of training. And during the bike I actually got some issues with my right knee and I was tempted to just DNF after the bike. I ended up starting the run anyway and actually had a pretty good run and my overall time was actually quite good too. So I keep surprising myself with how little training you can do a triathlon (but before just trying to do the same, please remember that I have done a number of these already and I knew what was am getting into because I have done the exactly same race before).

But, as somebody just said to me the other day... this just shows that too many of us are probably permanently overtrained. Which is an interesting though.

On the other hand... Doing these races with so little training is NOT easy. I definitely feel it that I have not put in my mileage on the bike (where I have least training this year). I suffered up that one steep hill at mile 11 and, as I mentioned, my knee was very unhappy with me on the last climb to the reservoir.

Anyway. Here are the numbers for this race compared to my earlier years at UVAS... I think the swim was actually measured long, so the swim time is good. the Bike and Run were slooow. It's obvious I didn't train much because my transitions were slow - that's something that typically improves with practice :)

By the way... did you notice something? The Thirt design is the same as for SJIT in 2003 ;)

June 26- SJIT - San Jose International Triathlon

SJIT always is a special race for me, as I probably mentioned in these pages each year I've raced it. What I probably didn't mention yet is that there is always a very large contingent from my club there: TRIbe (www.tribetriathlon.com). This year wasn't different - we had probably 30 people racing there (which is a significant percentage of the total club).

The race is a bit shorter than a full Olympic tri because the lake is small and it's not possible to fit a full 1.5k swim into that space. Even so there are several turns and I always feel that I never get boxed, scratched and kicked as much as in this race -- it's just a bit tighter than in some other swims. And there area also a lot of really competitive people in this race, it seems. But the race is good fun, the course is great and very fast (flat except for one hill and sometimes a lot of head wind on one part of the course).

Like with the other races this year I'm not pushing for speed - it's simply not possible with my lack of training. So finishing a race well and strong and enjoy it, that's my goal. That said, I did pretty well at SJIT. Yes, I was significantly slower than the last time I did it (which was a PR). But if you factor in that this year we had a real killer headwind on the bike section, my time is actually not bad at all. Also the transition area was set up a bit differently this time, which I feel added a bit to the T1 time (we all had to run a bit farther from the water) and there was quite a long run with the bike to get out of T1. That easily added up to 1- 1.5 minutes, I guess). Oh, and let's not forget that I'm an old fart by now *laugh*. I'm especially happy with my bike time, because with that wind this time is actually quite decent. Overall I'm happy with my result :)

Other updates... I finally decided to commit to trying a half-Ironman again. I signed up for the Big Kahuna in Santa Cruz on September 11. Just a bit over 2 months to go, yikes. Wish me luck :)

July 24 - Wharf-to-Wharf

Wharf-2-Wharf is a fun run from Santa Cruz to Capitola, it is about 10k. It's not a fast run because there are so many people crammed into the street, but running PRs is not the goal of this race, after all. It's to have fun (and go for ice cream afterwards - yummm). They had a really neat Tshirt design this year too (see photo).

Sept 11- Big Kahuna - My first Half-Ironman

"I did it"! And I am very happy that I managed to do this race. I was not as well prepared as I'd like but I was very lucky with the weather and I had a wonderful race despite the major knee problems that - literally - plagued me throughout the run. But the key point is that I finished. And I even finished a bit faster than I had estimated, so overall I'm extremely pleased and happy.

The times in the table may not look so impressive, especially the run and the T1 times, but it was my first half-IM after all. The first transition was so long because there is a long run from the beach to the transition area. In addition to that, the weather turned out much better than I had expected and I had to re-organize my stuff a bit for the bike ride which took extra time. And as my goal was to finish, I didn't really fret too much about my transition time either. And my run time was pretty slow of course, but that was because of my knee problem. I probably walked at least half of the run distance so it's no wonder that I had a 2:20ish half-marathon. Better slow than do permanent damage to your knee...

The swim was nice. Ideal conditions, with a bit of current thrown in. Due to the change in weather the bike was much more pleasant than I had thought. Most of the time there is a strong headwind for the first part of the bike course, but I was lucky and there was barely any wind till a few miles before the turn-around. And then we had some tail-wind. That helped. I had expected to take about 3:30 for the bike section and I took just a bit over 3 hours! Of course I used up all that time on the run again...

Big Kahuna had a very nice Tshirt. On the left is the front design with the finisher medal - a cool tiki design on a ceramic plate with a leather ribbon. The other photo shows the back of the shirt.

Depending on how well I recover from this one, I might do one more large thing this year. I have my sights on one more marathon, the Silicon Valley Marathon. I just have to increase my run distance again. On the other hand I want to be careful with this knee issue. So it might happen or it might not. I'll decide that relatively short term... As always: stay tuned :)