How to Pick the Right Race

We are in the process of picking our last race for the season. Now that I've got a couple races under my belt I've got a better idea of what is important to me in a race. If you are in the process of searching for your first race here are some things to consider:

Participant Size?
How many people are participating in the race? If the website doesn't make it clear you can usually get an idea by looking at the results from the previous year. Here are some the advantages I've noticed about the races I've done so far:

Smaller Races (under 100 participants)
- Move faster (e.g. not waiting hours to start due to swim waves)
- Less overcrowding (parking, transition, race course, bathrooms, food)
- More casual and participant friendly
- Less expensive registration fees

Larger Races (over 500 participants)
- Diverse crowd of participants means more people in your league and less time alone on the course
- More pre-race information available (course maps, FAQ's, lodging recommendations, etc.)
- More perks like race specific t-shirts, finisher medals, professional photography, raffles, etc.
- More race support such as aid stations, volunteers directing traffic, etc.

Location?
Most races start very early and you will need to be to the site even earlier for parking, setting up your gear and preparing for the race. A good rule of thumb is to plan to be at the race site 1.5 hours be the start time (earlier for larger races). Remember to include all this extra time when estimating what time you will need to leave your home. If the race is 2 hours from your home, and you have to be there by 6:30am, you would need to wake up by 4am. Is that reasonable for you? If not, you might want to think about renting a hotel or staying with a friend or family member that lives closer to the race site.

Saturday or Sunday?
Do you want to do your race on a Saturday or a Sunday? The advantage to racing on a Saturday is that you still have your entire weekend left to have fun and/or stay in bed with ice packs. The advantage to racing on Sunday is that you have Saturday to prepare all your gear and get plenty of rest without the distraction and, if necessary, travel to the race site.

Cost?
The registration fee for races varies a lot. I've seen races as cheap as $60 and it just goes up from there. How much is the registration fee? Will you also need to rent a hotel?

Finding a Race
My two favorite website for finding races:

- www.TriFind.com: My favorite website for locating races! TriFind claims to be the "The World's Largest Listings of Triathlons and Multi-Sport Events." The website is very user friendly and you can search by location.

- Beginner Triathlete: A great listing of races and I love that you can read race reports from past participants. This is a great way to get more details about the race. What are the road conditions like? How hilly is the run? Did the race start on time? Was there enough water?

If you've already racing, what type of race do you prefer and why? Smaller or larger races? Saturdays or Sundays?

Race Report: 2009 Massachusetts State Triathlon

Race Report Highlights
- Strong Swim
- Mixed up shoes in transition
- Missing Mile Markers on the Run
- Post race Dunkin Donuts

We headed up to Central Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon. We checked into our hotel and headed to the race site for packet pick-up. I liked being able to pick up the packets early and check out the race site before the big day. Here is a shot of transition (excuse the crappy iPhone pic, I left my camera at the hotel).

After we picked up our packets we drove the bike course. It was a 10 mile loop that we would do two times. Max Performance, the race organizers, had posted a video of the bike course online so I already had an idea of what to expect. I have to say, I loved being able to both watch the video and drive the course first. There was a long 3/4 mile climb at mile 4 & 14 which was actually steeper in person than it looked on the video. The second half of the loop had some rough roads that had me a bit worried too. I haven't gotten a flat yet and I really didn't want to deal with this on race day.

After we drove the course we headed over to the local YMCA for a pre-race pasta charity fundraiser and we filled up on pasta, pizza and salad.

Sam was messing around with my phone and took this awesome picture of me :)

Race Day
The alarm went off at 5:30. And then my cell phone was buzzing at 5:35. And then the phone rang at 5:40. You can never be too careful. The first thing I did was look out the window to discover it was raining. By the time we packed up the car and headed to the race site it was pouring. We started to wonder if they might have to cancel the race...

By the time we got to the race the rain had all but stopped but it was still pretty cloudy and I wondered how long the rain would hold out. Here is my transition set up. The bike racks had a rear wheel placement set-up. The rows were numbered but the slots were not so I set up close to the end of my row. I kept my running shoes in a plastic bag in case it started raining again later. The idea of putting on soaking wet shoes was less than exciting.

The race really catered to beginners as it had a beginners award category, a pre-race meeting and open water swim session specific for beginner racers. I was registered in the beginners category since this was supposed to be our first race. Across from my bike was this incredible cruiser. I couldn't imagine trying to race on this thing but I bet she had fun!

We took a pre-race picture and then it was time to head down to the beach.

This was a pretty big race as it had a sprint and Olympic distance and there was around 500 participants.

I was in the last wave so I had to wait about 25 minutes to start the race. That is one thing I didn't like about having a larger race - lots of waiting to start. But, I've heard of people waiting 2 hours to start their wave so 25 minutes isn't so bad. By the time it was our turn to go I had to pee but I figured I would just go in the water before the swim started. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time in the water between waves and I didn't have time to pee! I ended up holding it for the entire race!

Swim - 1500 Meters
25:34
44 of 253 Overall / 3 of 16 Age Group (25-29)

The swim went well. Since I'm a strong swimmer I got out in front of my group and held a steady pace and stayed to the outside to avoid getting kicked or hit. The water temp was a comfortable 73 degrees. By the time I got to the second buoy I was starting to pass people in the waves in front of me. Sam had started 8 minutes ahead of me and he was pretty worried about the swim distance so every time I saw a blue hat I looked to see if it was him. By the time the swim finished I still hadn't seen him. Either he did really well or he had drowned.

Transition 1
2:56
183 of 253 Overall / 16 of 16 Age Group

I was really hoping to have faster transitions in this race. I ran out of the swim and into transition and grabbed my bike shoes. I put the first shoe on and I noticed it felt big but I didn't think too much about it. Then I heard Sam yell my name from across transition. My first thought - "He's not dead!" Then I heard, "YOU HAVE MY SHOE!" Well, that's why it felt big!! We have the same bike shoes, but different sizes of course, and we had gotten our shoes mixed up. Oops! Note to self: for fast transitions make sure you don't have your husband's gear. We ran across transition, switched shoes, and then took off on our bikes.

Bike - 20 Miles
1:10:07 / 17mph average*
188 of 253 Overall / 9 of 16 Age Group
*My bike computer read 19 miles which would average 16.2mph

I saw three people with flats in the first couple miles and I was getting worried (can you tell I worry a lot?). I really really didn't want to get a flat. I tried to stay focused on the bike and push it hard. The hill was painful but not unbearable. At the bottom was a sign that said "Crush this Hill!" The worst part was about half way up there was another sign that said "Almost There." I was glad to see it until I realized I wasn't really almost there at all. I still had a ways to go. On the second loops I cursed the hill and just tried to keep my breathing steady and keep even pedal strokes. With a mile to go I breathed a sigh of relief because I figured if I got a flat I could slowly bike or walk back to transition.

Transition 2
1:51
132 of 253 Overall / 6 of 16 Age Group

Uneventful. Switched bike shoes for running shoes, grabbed my energy jelly beans and booked it out of transition.

Run - 6.2 miles
1:04:11 / 10:21 min/mile
211 of 253 Overall / 11 of 16 Age Group

I felt okay at the beginning of the run. I ate my jelly beans and tried to pickup my feet. After awhile I was starting to get annoyed that they hadn't put mile markers on the course. Seriously, it would be nice to know how far I've gone. And then I saw it. The one mile maker. Ah! I hadn't even gone a mile yet. This was going to be a long run. After about 2 miles I fell into a better pace and I felt strong-ish. At mile 3 I accidentally took Gatorade instead of water and I almost threw up. At mile 4 I started thinking that I should have cut my toenails. At mile 5 I was getting hot and thirsty and I was really wanting it to be over. With about a half mile left I saw Sam jogging towards me. Again, he went the extra mile for the blog :) At mile 6 I wondered why I was still running and realized I had to go the extra .2 miles!

My posture in this picture is terrible. You can tell how tired I am. I think strengthening my core will reduce this slumping in the run.

My mother-in-law came to watch the race - our first spectator!

Strong finish! When I finally saw the finishers chute I gave it everything I had. I was so glad it was over!

A running picture of me with both feet off the ground!

Overall
2:44:57
171 of 253 Overall
11 of 16 Age Group
8 of 20 Newbie Females




Post-race shot! Proud of our accomplishment and finishing our first Olympic distance race!

The sun had started to come out at the end of the race.

We went to Appleebee's for lunch after. I had a big bowl of pasta and then a hot fudge "dessert shooter."

After lunch we headed back down to NYC. On the way home we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a Coolatta. I like this race tradition!

Overall it was a great race. Well organized with good race support!

Official Race Photos

I finished my race recap this morning but then Blogger decided to transform all my pics into ugly hyperlinks. So, I've got to fix that technical glitch before it goes live. In the meantime, I'll share with you the official photos from brightroom.

Here is me on the bike. I think it's a pretty good action shot!

Here is Sam on the bike - he went out of transition right before me.

Here I am on the run. This picture as taken in the first mile so my form hasn't completely fallen apart yet... Although, I really need to work on not crossing my arms in front of me.

Here is my finish photo. If you look at my feet you will see that they are both off the ground. When you are a slow runner like me this rarely happens. Most of the time you see both of my feet on the ground at the same time (similar to walking).

Here's a close up :)

I would have liked to order the digital prints of a couple of these but unfortunately brightroom is a major rip off. When it comes to digital copies you can order all or none and it is $51. Seriously? Seems like they could make more if they charged $10 per digital copy. I think I would pay $10 for a digital copy of the bike picture. I still that would be rediculous but I could justify the $10. But, lucky for my wallet that just isn't an option.

I hope to have the official race report up soon!

Half Marathon Training

Race report from the MA State Triathlon is coming soon! It requires a little more concentration and a lot more pictures so I can't write it on my lunch break :)

Remember when I was contemplating 26.2? Well, I contemplated it a bit more and decided that attempting to run a marathon was probably biting off more than I can chew. So, I decided I would run a half marathon first and see how that goes. I will be running/walking the Norwegian Festival Norway Run / Grete's Great Gallop. Here is my husband finishing the race last year.






This half marathon takes place in Central Park on October 3rd. I'm of Norwegian descent so I think this will bring extra luck which I will most certainly need when attempting to run 13.1 miles.

If you count this week it is 10 weeks until race day. This seems like a lot but it really isn't that much time in terms of training. I researched many plans but it took awhile to find something that was a good fit. I wanted a plan that had 3-4 runs per week and included a mix of different types of workouts to keep me interested but nothing so complicated that I couldn't figure out how to read it. After a night of research I settled on a training plan that I looked on the Runner's World website. It is appropriately named the First Half Marathon Training Plan. The plan is perfect as it includes 3 workouts per week, and each workout has a specific purpose (speedwork, tempo run and long distance). If you go to the link you can read the full description of the plan. It includes the primary principals of the plan charts and equations to determine your goal pace for each workout.

The Plan

My running usually comes in 3 speeds: sprinting, distance running (anything more than 400 meters), and walking. It will take awhile to adjust to this kind of running program, but I'm looking forward to mixing things up and hopefully increasing my speed too.

I'm still recovering from the race on Sunday so I skipped the speed work and started with the tempo run today. The run was hard because it was really humid and already hot. I wanted to quit but I didn't! I knew that wouldn't be a good way to start my training. I ran the 3 miles in 29 minutes so I was happy to keep a sub 10:00 pace throughout the run.

Kick some serious butt!

It's almost time for the Massachusetts State Triathlon! Right now I should be packing the car but I just had to share this awesome card that showed up in the mail today from my awesome sister-in-law.

Have a great weekend!

101 in 1001: Day 171

I haven't posted about my 101 in 1001 for awhile, but I have managed to accomplish a few more things.

Start Date: February 17, 2009
End Date: November 15, 2011
Number Completed: 11 of 101

Completed

#21. Complete a Sprint distance triathlon (5.16.09)

Pine Barrens Sprint Triathlon
May 16, 2009

In Progress

#10. Drink 20 new types of beer (8 of 20)
Now that I have my iPhone I can take pictures of the beer so that I can remember them later :)

7) Pinnacle Pale Ale by Triple Rock Brewing Co. - I had this in California
when we went to the Triple Rock Brew Pub in Berekley, CA. This is one
of America's original brew pubs. I could taste the history in this yummy beer!

8) New Castle Brown Ale - I can't remember much about this beer. It didn't suck but it obviously didn't blow my mind either.

Does anyone have any original beer suggestions?

#29. Try three new classes at the gym (1/3)
I took a spinning class at the gym last month. It kicked my butt but I fully intend to go back for another beating!

#52. Visit 3 new baseball stadiums (2/3)
When we went to California in May we spent an afternoon watching the Oakland A's. We brought Sam's little six year old brother who is so adorable we even ended up on the marquee!

I have to say the A's stadium was pretty unimpressive. But, how can you compete with the San Francisco Giant's stadium (AT&T Park)?

{AT&T Park, June 2006}

#84. Donate blood three times (2/3)
I donated blood again in June. One more time and I will meet my goal - although I will probably continue to give blood on a regular basis. It's a good excuse to eat cookies at 9am :)

#87. Send 10 'just because' cards (1/10)
I sent a just because card to a friend :)

Fail

#50. See taping of a television show
I had two tickets for a taping of The Daily Show but I ended up canceling at the last minute because of work commitments. I know that is a lame excuse. I need to find another show. Preferably one that does tapings after 5pm.

#93. Buy fresh flowers once a month for a year
I bought flowers in March and April, but then I fell off the wagon... Time to start again.

Celebrity Sighting

I had a celebrity sighting while biking in Central Park this morning! Lucy Danziger, editor-in-chief of SELF Magazine, is a triathlete. She writes about her racing on her SELF blog, Lucy's Blog, and sometimes she talks about it in her editorial in the magazine. I've been a long time subscriber to SELF and I was excited to find out that Lucy did triathlons.

{Terrier teammates - Lucy in the middle}

From reading her blog I knew she was a member of the Terrier Tri Triathlon Club. I see them biking in the mornings in Central Park and this morning Lucy passed me on her bike and then I saw her about a half hour later running. I think the entire Terrier Tri group was doing a brick this morning.

Celebrity sightings are pretty rare for me because I don't retain any knowledge about pop culture so I don't even know who most celebrities are or what they look like. In fact, last November I sat next to Stephen Baldwin for an entire flight from Phoenix to NYC and I didn't even know it was him. He even gave me a copy of his book and I just nodded and stuffed it into my purse. It wasn't until I was in the car that I was looking at it closer and realized who I had been talking to!

Results: Riverside Park Tune Up Swim 2009

So they finally posted the results from Saturday's Riverside Park Tune Up Swim. Remember how I told you they made such a big deal about wet suits making racers ineligible for awards? Well, the results were posted in one long list and there is no distinction between who was wearing wetsuits and who was not. I guess that is why so many people wore wetsuits - because NYC Swim doesn't distinguish between them in the results. Here is a a summary of the results based on the single long list. I haven't been able to locate a list of the offical award winners (top 3 in each age group - without a wetsuit).

#1 Male: 16:44
#1 Female: 17:11
My Official Time: 20:49

I placed:
41 of 127 total swimmers (male and female)
12 of 55 woman (all ages)
7 of 13 age group (women 20-29 years old)

My husband thinks I'm making too big a deal about the wetsuits, but I guess the reason I'm annoyed is because swimming is the one sport that I'm somewhat competitive in. I'm a super slow runner, a below average biker, but I'm a decent swimmer. I swam competitively in high school but I was never "great." There were always swimmers who were better than me. It didn't seem to matter how hard I trained or how well I ate. There was always a girl on my team who was faster than me. I've excelled in academics (I graduated college summa cum laude), I've excelled in the workforce (I was promoted within 6 months of starting my job), but I've never excelled at athletics. So, the prospect of actually placing in a large event was pretty exciting for me. As you can see, I did okay but I didn't place. I'm okay with that, but I'm a bit bitter that some people had an advantage but this isn't clear in the results. So kill me. I'll get over it, but I'm probably going to silently stew about it for another day or two :)

Race Report: Riverside Park Tune Up Swim 2009

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning for the Riverside Park Tune Up Swim, a one mile swim in the Hudson River. This race was being done at the same time as the Aquathlon: Stars and Stripes (1 mile swim & 5K run).

The NYC Swim policy states that if the water is over 68 degrees swimmers who wear wetsuits will not be eligible for awards. They estimated the water temperature would be between 70 and 75 so wetsuits would disqualify participants from awards. We received two emails about this in the week leading up to the swim so I decided that I was not going to wear my wetsuit. I didn't really think I had a chance at placing, but I did want to see how I compared to other swimmers in my age group. Sam decided to follow suit so we both arrived at the race in traditional swimsuits.

{Hudson River, 6:45am}

After we registered and picked up our timing chips, hats and bag-tags we had about 10 minutes before we needed to head up to the start location (the registration was at the finish spot). I gave my camera to Sam and asked him to take a few pics. You may not know this but I'm a bit of slow poke when I’m getting ready for anything. Once I gave him my camera he had time to take about 6 pictures before I was actually ready:

(took off my T-shirt, put it away, took off my glasses, put them away, fixed my hair, now I’m ready)

After our photo session we checked our bag and walked from 56th street to the start location at 72nd street. As we were walking we realized more and more people were wearing wetsuits. We estimated that at least 50% of the participants were wearing wetsuits. We were both starting to get pretty worried, especially Sam since he isn’t as strong of a swimmer.

The closer we got the start the more freaked out I was getting. How would I handle the salt water? What about the current? Should I have worn my wetsuit? The only reason I didn’t was so I could rate myself against other swimmers but now it looked like most of the other swimmers who appeared to be “in my league” were all wearing wetsuits! Then I heard someone talking about how they were stung by jelly-fish last year! Oh shit. Now I’m really starting to panic. What was I thinking paying $50 to this?! Someone should be paying me! No wonder every time I told someone I was swimming in the Hudson River they scrunched up their noses in disgust.

Well, by the time the race started I was really getting myself worked into a frenzy. Nothing I could do now. I wasn’t going to drop-out which meant the only option I had left was to swim.

The swim was divided into two starts. The aquathlon swimmers started first and the swim only group started about 5 minutes later. It was an in-water start so everyone jumped off the dock and then paddled out a bit to wait for the start. When I jumped off the dock and my feet immediately sunk into the mushy soaking rotten oily sponge that is the floor of the Hudson River. It was GROSS!

I made an expert graphic of the set up of the swim course:

As you can see, there was a buoy that was set slightly upstream from the starting point. This meant that everyone had to swim against the current in order to get around this first buoy. It was a bad set up and really hard start to the race. The yellow dot is about where I started. I really should have made my way further to the north side of the dock but I didn’t realize yet how hard this was going to be. Everyone was bunched up, the current was very strong and it took a lot of effort to swim upstream. This was also the only time of the swim when I was getting kicked and swimming over people. It was so crowded getting around this first buoy! This is by far my biggest complaint of the race. They really should have put the first buoy more in line with the dock. By the time I reached the first buoy I heard the volunteers in the kayaks and boats were telling people they could skip the buoy but I was so close I decided I could get around it.

After getting around the first buoy everything improved. I fell into a nice groove and continued to pass other swimmers. I estimated that I was about 75% complete when I heard the volunteers on the boats yelling. I couldn’t tell if they were just cheering or if there was a problem. I didn’t want to stop because I knew there were a few swimmers on my tail. Then I started to smell diesel and when I looked to my left I saw a huge boat/ship that was going through the river between me and the swim exit shore. Crazy! I was pretty far away from it but I know some of the swimmers before me were probably pretty close. Talk about scary?! After the shipped passed I could see that it was time to start veering back towards the shore. I overshot the exit a bit (partially because of the ship and partially because I couldn’t see very well) and I had to swim a bit up stream to get to the ladder to climb out. I felt like I had a really strong race and I was proud of myself. Nothing I had feared had caused problems (the water was plenty warm, it was more brackish than salty, and no jelly fish!). I ran back to my bag to get my camera and I caught a few pictures of the other swimmers finishing up. I got back just in time to see Sam climbing out of the water:

After we had both finished the race we collected our medals (!) and headed back to the bag check area to pick up our belongings, get some snacks and water and our awesome swag bags.

The swag bags were pretty cool and filled with some awesome stuff. The actual bag was a nice drawstring bag with the NYC swim logo on the front. Inside was water bottles, a chamois towel, swim cap, ear plugs, snacks, samples of sunscreen and Tri-Swim Shampoo, Conditioner, Body Wash and Lotion!

Here is a close-up picture of the medal that everyone received! This is my first "medal” so I was pretty excited about that!

They haven’t posted the race results yet so I don’t know where I ranked among the other swimmers. My unofficial time according to my watch was 20:27. There is a possibility that I may have placed in my age group, but I think it all depends on how many people in my group were wearing wetsuits. I’ll keep you posted and provide more details as soon as they are available!

Overall the Riverside Park Tune Up Swim was a good race and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year!