TriBLog

REV 3 race report

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:26:51 -0700

REV 3 race report.

Any time I can drive to a race in less than two hours I am always a fan. With that said the REV3 people put on an excellent production and I would drive much further (Ohio..??) to do one of their races.

Quassy amusement park is probably not on the list of many people 'top theme parks' but as a race location it was perfect. I stayed in Waterbury the night before the race and grabbed dinner with team mates Tony, Ken and Plamen. the usual pasta and medicinal beer did the job.

My hotel was a short 15 minute drive from the race site and so a 5am wake up call (really very sociable) gave me plenty of time to eat breakfast and get to the race parking lot by 6am. Fortuitously as I pulled into the car park/field I was ushered to start a new row which was literally 50 yards from transition. I have never been that close before. I felt like a VIP and could do all my pre race preparation in my car rather than transition. Again very sociable. As I loitered around the car Connie, Becky and Katie found me and we hung out for the last half hour talking away the nerves.

The weather by the way was fine. Storms overnight had passed though and it looked like we would escape the worst of it on race day. We did. literally one or two spots of rain on the bike but otherwise cloud cover kept the temperatures to the low 80s. Humidity was a little high but to complain would be churlish.

One of the REV3 trademarks is that the races have a big prize purse and they are stacked with Professionals. certainly the deepest field I have seen outside of Kona. Crowe, Bazzone, Reed, zymestev, cunningham, Badmann, Ficker, carfrae, wassner, lavato and many others were wondering very sociably around the place.

The swim was a simple square shaped course with buoys to the right. Water was very clam and warm. Nothing to complain about. I clocked 31 minutes and the only downer was tearing my wetsuit when I took it off. 15th in my age group and overall 70th place. a solid start.

I hadn't ridden or run the course but there was a lot of talk about how hard it was going to be. some saying the run was the hardest portion others saying the bike. Either way this wasn't Florida ! On occasion ignorance is bliss and I was certainly ignorant so was subscribing to that view. The bike was not flat. All up or all down but nothing crazy with a lot of just grinding false flats. Also a few sharp turns thrown in to make it hard to carry momentum on the occasions you might have had it. There was no way it was going to be a fast ride but I have certainly done much harder bike courses. (amzoff or world toughest half for instance). The only downer was a flat tyre at about mile 12. it took me 7 or 8 minutes to change it and I was back on my way. Despite not knowing the course I think I was smart enough to know that hammering it wasn't the right strategy (not that I can really hammer anyway). How hard the run really was going to be was clearly open for debate but it certainly wasn't going to be flat. While this was not even a 'B' race I would be lying if I said I was just going to goof off. But having the flat early made the decision not to kill myself that much easier. already 7-8 minutes down any kind of age group placing went out of the window. Ultimately I navigated the course in 2:56. leaving me 26th in my division and 125th overall.

And then the run. I love the run. that's my thing. but as I mentioned I had no idea what lay ahead. But the first ~2-3miles were downhill - that was good or perhaps that was bad and I knew that as the end of the bike was the beginning of the run.

I felt good coming out of T2 and in the first 300 yards skipped past 2 or 3 people. Split1 6:25, split2 6:15 split3 6:35. hmmm this could comeback to bite me. thereafter the course seemed to spend the best part of the next 10 miles going uphill. But I felt really strong and was cruising past people. As the miles ticked by people were walking all around me and I stayed strong. About mile 5 one guy went by me. I was annoyed but c'est la vie. However it caused me to pick up my pace a little and I tried to keep the guy in sight. He didn't get further away. I picked off more and more people and while obviously feeling tired felt some real deep strength. The hills were my friend. Around mile 9 the gap to my earlier conqueror began to shrink. I was speeding up. I figured I would at least reach him and then try to hold on. As I pulled up along side we had a brief chat and after about 1/2 a mile I realised I was going to drop him. He encouraged me to finish strong and leave him back. I ran the last 5km hard which included an evil 13th mile straight up hill. the run was 1:30 and took me back to 15th in my age group and 69th overall. 6:53 pace and the fastest spilt in my age group. I don't have exact numbers but I think one of the top 10 age group runs of the day.

post race food was great and Brian, Mauricio, Ken, Tony and I sat down for some tasty burgers.....and we discussed Bolton...but that is a story for another day.

As a low priority race I was very pleased with how I felt and how the race went. Flat tyres happen and it is much better to get them on days like this than on days that matter. so no complaints. REV3 did a great job and I will certainly enter their race series again. But don't believe all the hype about this course. It is not flat and is certainly a challenge but there are much harder races out there.

And the best thing. back in my apartment by 4pm.

Lake Placid Memorial Day Weekend

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Sun, 30 May 2010 15:17:15 -0700

The weekend has gone very well so far. We have a great house on mirror lake drive that is being shared by a cool crew. me, Trish, Joe, Shari, Vicky, Lowell, Meg, Brad, Mike, Margarita and Bryan. Some of us are sharing training days and others not, but most of us are all doing some kind of swimming biking or running. By memorial day standards the weather has been great and the lake is really very pleasant to swim in. Wind was fierce today for those out on the bike. Vicky, Meg and Lowell all putting in solid 100 mile efforts in the conditions.

A couple more days to go and everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to whats left.

more to follow

Men's Health - Chris Cuomo's Blog

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:10:14 -0700

I have been working with Chris for about a month now as he embarks on a journey to reach the finish line of the NYC tri.

He will be blogging regularly

Follow his trails and tribulations at

http://blogs.menshealth.com/triathlon-throwdown/

American Zofingen

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:59:04 -0700

American Zofingen.

this is a 'festival' of races. On the day there were 4 races over the same course.

short course duathlon. 5/28/5
middle course 'F1' format duathlon 5/28/5/28/5
long course duathlon 5/85/15
Bike iron time trial 122

I raced the 'long course'. (LC) It was BRUTAL. Total climbing on the run was around 3000 feet and on the bike close to 9000 feet.

Set in the beautiful area around New Palz, New York the scenery is breathtaking. And if you have the time to observe it then it does make the pain go away for a few brief seconds.

I have very little experience in the duathlon format so my race plan was a little bit 'make it up as you go along' but having previewed the bike course a couple of weeks ago I knew that I could not go out too hard on the bike. That was about all I really had planned. Also as I have been dealing with a running injury for the best part of 2 months and my mileage was very low. The only other thing I knew was that the second run of 15miles was going to be extremely difficult. My longest run in the prior two months pre-race was 30 minutes. I was going from high school JV to the majors in one quick step. Not smart.... but I have never been accused of that.

As the ~50 racers lined up for the LC start there was a good deal of apprehension. There were several people who had done it before and the fear in their eyes was more than enough warning for the rest of us. Starting at the bottom of steep wooded mountain all we knew was the run went 'up there'. Awesome.

The gun goes off and 50 or so people head to the single track, rocky, tree root, steep scrambling, stream crossing course. The bulk of the really steep climbing happens in the first half of the 5 mile loop. But it is STEEP. The second half brings you back mostly via some nice carriage trails and down some treacherous single track paths. With that said the first loop was ok. Fresh legs and ignorance are a beautiful thing. Around 38mins.

Now the bike. As I mentioned I rode a couple of loops pretty slowly a few weeks ago and it left me scared. Here I had 3 loops and a 15 mile run to follow. The only way to deal with that mentally was to ignore the run. Who knows I might be dead before I get there so why bother worrying about it. The bike is hard. Around 2900 feet of climbing per loop. Sticking to the only morsel of a plan I had I went out nice and easily. I had put on a 27 cassette and was prepared to use every gear I had. No heroics here. Two major climbs on each loop. Don't fight them. Just finish them. that was my goal. In between on the flatter sections take back some time but always remembering that right up to the finish line there are big climbs. The bike went pretty well despite every time I a repeated a climb it was impossible to believe that some evil spirit had jacked the gradient up a few notches. "was this hill really this steep on the last loop? ". My team mate Ben Leese was in and out of my field of vision for most of the second two loops and I figured that I must be doing alright. I wasn't killing myself and I had luckyleese in sight. sub 5 was the goal for the bike and I came in around 4:50. Unfortunately though I could no longer ignore the cheeky little 15miler ahead.

Holy cr*p. the climbs were unreal. Pre-race I had been guided by others that walking was inevitable but of course I refused to believe that. Half a mile flattish out of transition and then a sharp left turn. BANG !! This was ridiculous. And I have 3 loops to go. After you realise that you simply have to walk some stretches you adjust the strategy and move accordingly. Walk the ups, run the smooth down hill carriage trails and try not trip A over T on the technical downhill single tracks. Loop 1 was ok ~45minutes. Loop 2 I just ran out of gas ~ 53minutes. Sadly my arrival at the mid point aid station was poorly timed just as they had run out of any real fuel (more was to arrive soon by truck). I chugged red bull and seeing stars I made my way back to the start/finish at the end of loop 2 where upon I feasted on turkey wraps, Oreos and coke. suitably refuelled I set off on the last loop. Mentally and now physically I felt a lot better and ran a quicker 3rd loop than 2nd ~51minutes. With about 2 hundred yards to go a fellow LC racer came up along side me and with desperation I asked if he was going to make me sprint to the finish. he didn't seem like he wanted any part of that game so I found a final kick and went hard to the finish line edging him out and as it turns out also beating him to 1st place in our AG with a time of 8hrs and 18 seconds.

I really cant complain about my personal race and actually have every reason to feel good. The run clearly let me down but with essentially no training for two months leading up to it, it really wasn't so bad. Bike split was very solid and I gave up much less time than I usually do the finishers around me. I guess all the lack of running helped the biking. It certainly sets me up well for the season.

This is a great low key old school race. The finish line spread was amazing and we lucked out with spectacular weather. This report doesn't begin to do justice to how hard it was or how much fun it was but you will have to take my word for that. As an early season tune up and depending on your season's goals the short/middle or long course are a fantastic challenge and very different to the more traditional races that most of us do.

Asphalt Green had an excellent showing across the distances taking home a lot of hardware. Congratulations to everyone. And of course thanks to our support team, Trish, Sharri. Megan and others I am forgetting.

For me it was the real kick off to the 2010 season and I don't think it could have gone much better.

2010 has arrived

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Sat, 15 May 2010 04:34:39 -0700

ok so it actually arrived a few months ago but the race season starts tomorrow for me with a Baptism of fire. American Zofingen Long Course. A very hilly duathlon. 5/85/15 with over 3000 feet of climbing on the runs and close to 9000 feet on the bike.

The winter/off season was good and I have kept myself in pretty reasonable shape though recently have been dealing with a bit of a injury which has meant pretty minimal running miles but i think i am at least healthy for tomorrow though not sure how the endurance will hold up. oh well we'll see. Hopefully will break 8 hours.

More importantly my athletes are all doing very well. Mike beat his goal at the Boston marathon and Megan looks good for her first race of the year tomorrow too at the middle distance AZ event. But don't let the middle distance make you think it will be easy. r/b/r/b/r..going to be very hard but she has trained incredibly well and is in the right place for getting to LP and peaking in July. Tomorrow will hurt in a very positive way.

Jessica too has her first race this weekend. The Ragner Relay. She is part of an ultra team to do the 24 hr ~185 mile race and plans to run ~34 miles herself over three legs. slow and steady is the goal. And not to get hurt. But that is always the goal for all of us.

Anyway time to pack all my stuff for the race. I will let you know things work out

Bloomberg News

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:52:58 -0700

http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=a3WleLrbiAs8

i was interviewed by Bloomberg news. unemployment and training for the nyc marathon

Kona Race Report

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:17:09 -0700

It was my 4th Kona and 13th Ironman overall. It is fair to say that one gets somewhat used to the races but it is also accurate to say that you never really know what you are going to get. This is especially true in kona where conditions while always very hot and very windy vary within that.

Swim -

Remember that most people at this race have qualified and so are therefore are more compressed with respect to times. Age groups of course create a normal distribution but it is pretty safe to say that from 20-50 that a lot of people are swimming a very similar pace. So where as every swim start is a pretty aggressive event, in Hawaii it is multiplied. The up side are the warm crystal clear waters and all the prett fish below to take our mind off the near death experience.

It is an in water start so we are made to tread water for ~10 minutes prior to the gun going off. Then BANG. Off we go. I have been kicked and elbowed many times but never as hard as on this occasion. I still have a cut on my nose and bruising around my eye socket. The good news was that the goggles were kicked into my eye not off them. At least i think that was good news. The water was fairly normal for Kona with a mild swell but no real complaints. i came out in 1:05. not a PR but pretty good for me.

read more...

Bike -

This is where the fun starts. Early in the morning the winds are light and we get out to the end of the Queen k (~45M) in good shape. Then there is a slight right turn and a climb up to Hawi. the wind is always strong at this point and compunded y what is a steady ~14mile climb.
Continue reading "Kona Race Report"

the race will be over 48 hours from now

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:08:01 -0700

it is thurdsay. race day is saturday. things going well so far.

hawaii is beautiful...but you already knew that.

so far the weather has been very hot but with calm winds. but who knows what saturday will bring ?? guess we will find out.

off to kona tomorrow

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:06:13 -0700

feel pretty good. just want it to be here. tried to swim today but died of boredom after 500 yds so went for pancakes and eggs instead. feel much better now. seeing the IMs on Universal has got be pumped and am ready to hit the line. start and finish. Its always a long season but i wont complain. Many would take my slot if they could. Kona here i come.

nyc marathon

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:52:08 -0700

check the tips page for the nyc marathon route. clink the link and then from the tools box you can see all the comments i have made. you might find it useful.

last weekend

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:27:10 -0700

a few miles to do on the bike this weekend and then it is big time taper. I hit the pool a few times this week and i think i can remember how to swim. it always goes much quicker in the clear warm waters of the south pacific anyway.....thats the theory anyway.

Reach the beach

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:18:46 -0700

all done. 'fat guys don't bonk.' 208 mile. 25hr38min.

results not posted yet. but we did well.

Van 1
Ben, Biff, Pete

Van 2
John, Lowell, Joe

awesome job by everyone

Recent Results

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:56:13 -0700

Lake Placid IM

10th Age Group - Kona Qualifier

Mossman Olympic Distance

10th overall, 1st Age group

Skinnyman/I'm All that

2 day 4 race event series. 5th overall 2nd and age group

Westchester Toughman

1/2 IM. 7th overall, 3rd Amateur and 1st Age group

Reach the Beach

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:42:16 -0700

Heading to NH tonight to start the run tomorrow. 210 miles, 6 people, 24 hours. weather looks ok. should be a lot of fun. Our team is 'Fat Guys Don't Bonk' if you want to check our progress. Aiming for a top 20 finish out of the 400 teams overall. ANd remember most teams have 12 runners.

team - Ben, Biff, Pete, John, Lowell, Joe, and our driver Trish. what a saint....

westchester toughman

nospam@example.com (Ben Lloyd) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:23:10 -0700

haven't seen final results but i think about 8th overall (4th age grouper) and i won my aged group with a 4:40. pretty good day. it is a tough course. swim this year was great (we could see) and the run is beautiful shady run but VERY challenging. quicker coming home too so important to save something for that. the bike is a nice challenging course with some wind this year but unfort the first and last 10 miles the road surface is pretty bad. also traffic is not used to this race and doesn't really know what to do. but as this race evolves locals will come to know and embrace the race and it will be a very worthwhile local race.