Monday, May 21, 2012

Shamrock Duathlon Race Report

Yesterday, May 20th, was the Shamrock Duathlon in Glastonbury, CT. It really marks the beginning of my summer race schedule with no more than two weeks between races now until September, and likely no more than three until my entire year of racing culminates in November!

Heading into this race I knew several things. One is that I'm pretty good at duathlons but to be among the best in the country I still need to improve on the bike, and even on the run as well. If I'm going to be competitive at Duathlon Nationals next spring I'll have to run sub-17 for the first 5k and then keep up on the bike. Another thing I knew was that my run form is slowly returning after my Boston Marathon / Collegiate Nationals double 5 days apart last month. On Thursday I felt great in my track workout clicking off 400s in 80 seconds on less than a minute of rest. Finally, along with the first part, I knew I'd be reasonably competitive, but whether that meant top-3 or top-10 overall would depend entirely on the competition. I was certainly hoping for the former, especially after discovering my race number was 3, my second single digit multisport number this year!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Running by Feel

We live in the age of technology, much of which can provide valuable information about our training. It has never been easier to share workouts and files between coaches and athletes, but along with technology comes an unnecessary reliance on it.

To start off, let me preface this by saying that I am a data nerd. I am the kind of person who gets a little frustrated when I forget my HR monitor for a run, it doesn't want to work, or if my cadence sensor on the bike is having a fit and doesn't pick up that day. Spreadsheets, numbers, times, distances, are my thing. I wrote my supplemental essay on my college application about how numbers play an integral role in my life. When a friend shared this article on Twitter the other day, I laughed at the workout personality given for my zodiac sign:

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Marathons

Why we run them and some advice to make the most of it!


Hundreds of thousands of people choose to put themselves to the test every year by running a marathon; all 26 miles and 385 yards of it (or 42,195m for all you metric folk). Anyone who has experienced running a marathon can probably remember their first one. In most cases, my own included, the last hour or so of running in that race was likely the most painful athletic experience they had suffered through to that point.

Quite simply, people should not run 26.2 miles as fast as they can simply for the satisfaction of having done so. Yet the marathon market continues to explode and not only do we punish ourselves, we pay for the luxury of doing so. Consequently, the market price of a marathon can tell us the approximate utility, or "satisfaction" of running a marathon, which would be around $80-$100 for most, and up to $150 for some of the bigger marathons. Taking away the perceived value of the "free" t-shirt and other swag, we are left with the market value for 26.2 miles of consecutive running so that we can say we did it. Why is it, then, that the market value for such an activity is upwards of $70, $80, or even $100 dollars?

In three words: satisfaction, socialization, and culmination.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Recent Training and Summer Preview

With the close of the spring semester, I am now heading home to Connecticut for the summer. My goal this summer is to put a big emphasis on solid, consistent training in order to perform at my best in races and to have a great base heading into the fall SECTC (Southeast Collegiate Triathlon Conference) season.

Recently, my training has been a bit inconsistent, from being injured and demoralized by not being able to run leading up to the Boston Marathon, to being slammed with waves of school work that completely threw off my schedule. In the past week, however, training has been improving and I've swam and biked each three times in the past 6 days, simply alternating days. Yesterday, I also added my second run since Collegiate Nationals, and made it through the hilly 6 mile trail route still on my feet and at a reasonable pace given the terrain. With a 2500 yd swim workout coming up today, I will have swam a personal greatest distance for 7 days of 9200 yds, biked 116.5 miles on 3 rides, and run 10 miles in a week with essentially no planned running. I know that if I continue to execute my workouts consistently over the next several months, I'll see some stellar times in races this summer!