Popoi'a Swim Race Report '12

Popoi'a Flat Island Race Report

I had no plans to swim this. Do a 1.4mi race the weekend after a Half Ironman? Why would I do that? Shouldn't I be tired and resting?
Well, I wasn't too tired, and I'd spent the whole last week sitting on my couch alternating Skyrim with Super Awesome Wife, we'd earned a long session on the couch, and swimming for me isn't all that tough. I wouldn't have entered a foot race and probably wouldn't have spent money on a bike event, but I like swimming. It's worth it. Plus, I placed third in my age group last year so I had to defend. And my ego may have been whispering that if I managed to place last year...and I should be in better distance swimming shape this year...maybe...Not that I would ever register for a race simply because I might place well. I'm not the Grey.
Super Awesome Wife had no interest in getting up that early, or maybe it was Dirtbag Fetus who didn't, but either way I did this one by my lonesome, which is fine. I showed up, registered there, grabbed my fancy white t-shirt, way better that last year's shaky blue one, and killed time in the truck waiting to warm-up and getting mentally prepared.

Love me a new cap

 If this race was going to be anything like last year, it was going to be tough. Last year I remember thinking that if I was prone to sea sickness while swimming, it would have happened. The water out on the Kailua side of the island, especially when swimming around the tiny flat island, it brutally rough. Last year was a very hard swim and I fully expected more of the same. Embrace the waves.
Warm-up went well, I felt surprisingly strong considering I hadn't been in the water for a week, since my short swim with Greg Bennett. I decided to place no expectations on myself. I was going to go out, go hard, and whatever will be will be. Recovery Race.
Well, it was rough out there. This is, and I've said this before, the hardest swim on the island. The current and winds make for very choppy going and there were plenty of times where I would go for a breath only to have to knocked back by a wave. I decided to try and be as hydrodynamic as possible, trying to keep a tight core through the washing machine that I might cut through the water better.
This race uses smaller red buoys than many of the other open water swims on the island, which use huge yellow pyramids. The little buoys, plus the high chop, make sighting very difficult. You pop your read up, try and get a bead on either the flat island, a buoy, or a bright orange cap and head that way. If it's a cap then you're also playing I Hope They Ain't Lost Too, a game familiar to everyone who's ever done an open water swim. I track fairly straight, so as long as I can see where I'm supposed to be heading I stay on course, but it is unnerving to look, sight, swim, sight, and nothing seems closer. There is also quite a bit of accidental contact even later in the swim because of the ocean's push pull. You're swimming on someone's hip, drafting or just finding a good line, and suddenly you're grabbing feet or getting kicking in the face or getting a little touchy-feely on their waist. Sorry, dude. It was the ocean, I swear. ...what are you doing later?
The way back is awesome because there is some body surfing going on to make up for all the rolling fighting earlier in the swim. I found a group and hung out, determined not to get left and trying to make a climb up into them. Open water swimming is strange because it is very hard to know where you are in relation to the other racers. You can't tell from brief glances at feet who is in your age group or even if that's a guy or girl sometimes. You really need to swim your own swim, overtake whomever you can, and hope the people in front of you are in some other age group.
Triathlon has given me an advantage over the pure swimmer in one aspect- the finish. The clock doesn't stop when you hit the beach, it stops 200 yards later, after the run up the beach and across the timing mat. One guy I was chasing for 500 yards or so finished swimming ahead of me, but cruised his way up the beach. No way I'm letting him get away with that, so I was up and running hard as soon as I could get my feet clear of the water, passing him in the last five feet. Suck it, you should do the whole race. Turns out he wasn't even in my age group, but I don't care. Maybe he learned something about going hard all the way.
Result? I won my age group! I won it by a big, strong margin. Admittedly, the turn-out for this even is a fraction of what the North Shore Series events will be, my AG only had 10 swimmers, but I don't care. I'm proud of my time and my effort.
Finish Time- 42.53
First in the Men's 30-35 AG. 38th overall.
Because this event is put on by the Kailua Masters Swim Club they get prizes donated, which leads to going home with strange thing. Last year I took home a few pairs of really good cycling socks. This year- two gift certificates to Kailua-side establishments (cool, but 45 minutes away from me at best), AND...you ready for this...you sure...A NAPA HAT!

YES! A blue Napa Auto Parts hat. That I, ummm, I'm so happy, uh, to have won a....hat. Woo!
There should also be official event pictures on here at some point, but they haven't posted them yet.
I don't know what the next Dirtbag Event will be yet. Things are very up in the air right now for the Dirtbag Family as far as where we will be when. If we are here I'll probably do as many of the North Shore Swim Series races as I can. I'm looking into the Aloha State Games to see what that is all about. And I know there are a few triathlon's coming up that I'll want to do. Right now I'm still in the Take It Easy phase of recovery. I swim, I bike, I run, but nothing hard or long.
Hey- completely unrelated Dirtbag Contest- You can win a FREE Napa hat if you see me anywhere and ask me if you can have a Napa hat and I happen to have a Napa hat with me. Good luck!
Thanks to my sponsor Background Profiles for continuing to help fund all this foolishness and good times.

Popoia Open Water Race Report

Dirtbag Fitness had a successful morning, fans and friends.
Today was the Popoia Open Water 1.6mi race. Yes, 1.6 miles is plenty far to swim. Put it this way, the swim leg of a Half Ironman is 1.2mi. For a swimmer like your's truly, 1.6mi isn't that long, but it is long enough. Long enough to get plenty tired, long enough to need to trust the swimmer brain to pace correctly. Turns out, though, it wasn't the length of the swim I should have been concerned about.
It was the open water part.
I'm as comfortable in the water as a person can be. If swimming was a video game my Confidence Bar would be full. I've found all those crystals (red orbs/coins/horns). Better have after over ten years of competitive swimming. So I'm not intimidated by being out away from land. This morning's fun came from the surf.
Surf was rocking today. The last race I did out here stayed relatively close to the shore, which means the water was calm and flat. This race took us out and around Flat Island, where the water is not so much flat as it is rough and choppy. To be honest, I don't think it was that bad. Like, in a kayak it would probably have been alright, if a little rough. But in the water, trying to swim, trying to breathe, it felt brutal a few times. Put it this way, if it was possible to get sea sick while swimming, and I was so inclined, it would have happened.

Mass Milling-Around

What this meant for my race is that the whole plan pretty much got thrown out the window from the get go. To start, it was a mass water start that I may not have been ready for. That is to say, I was swimming a short warm-up to the first buoy (a warm-up that was cut short because some very-friendly dude wanted to chat while I was getting ready. Nice enough, but excuse-me-I-need-to-swim-a-bit), and was treading water out there when suddenly people are calling,"Five seconds! We're starting in five seconds! GO!" Oh...so we're going then. Ok. So my head wasn't quite where I wanted it to be right from the start. Nevertheless, off I went. And the whole, "keep up with the lead group" thing wasn't happening. Partially because I started a little out of position, and partially because there is not a whole lot of seeing going on in choppy water. So I may have been near the lead group at the start, but it's hard to pick out little orange caps bobbing in the surf when you are also a little orange cap at surf-level. A few times I stopped and breast-stroked to get my bearings and to make sure I was on my way to Flat Island and not, say, Maui. So I swam my own race. Which is fine, I trust myself and I know how to pace. I have  a fairly good internal gas gauge (my wife has a good external gas gauge, "Honeyyyyyy, ewww! Go outside!") when swimming.
So I swam. And swam. And pushed myself. And measured technique. And remembered not to forget to kick. And for some reason had Tenacious D stuck in my head. Got passed by a few fifteen year olds from the local swim team. Jerk kids. (15 year old took second with a time of 36:25. Little punk did butterfly for the last 100 yards. Which is something I would have done if I had thought of it. Punk.)

Dirtbag Post-race gasping

Coming around Flat Island was an adventure in using the surf to my advantage. Which means that instead of swimming into and over/under the waves coming towards shore I was heading in the same direction as those waves and was able to pseudo-body board for a few yards. That or get caught under it and pushed forward a little. Whatever.
At this point I could pop my head up and see the final buoy, so I turned it on and really went for it. I dug deep that last 1,000 yards. The water was calmer, so I was able to bring my stroke to bear and get technique working that had somewhat fallen apart in the rougher stuff. Strong kick, long strokes, and in I came. 41:05 was the official time.

Envelope of Winnings

This put me 21st overall. More importantly, this put me first in the Men's 26-30 age group! My first first! And second podium. And it was pretty much dead-on to my predicted time. Which really thrills me because at the halfway point, when there was some Dirtbag Battering going on, I was sure I was going to be way off.

I'm Number 1...or 21

I want to acknowledge my sponsor, Background Profiles, and thank them for their support. More importantly, I must thank Super Awesome Sexy Wife for waking up early with me and coming to watch a sea of orange caps, one of which is her husband. And of course to everyone else on Team Dirtbag who supports, encourages, and plays hard. I'm hoping Cycle Dirtbag writes something about his metric century I can link to so everyone can be impressed.
Next Sunday is the Firecracker Sprint tri and then it's off to the mainland for the Dirtbag and Stitches Annual Summer West Coast Family Tour.

Prep Swim

Swim Day

1 x 150- Warm-up
1 x 500- 7:30
3 x 200- 3:00 (increasing effort)
3 x 50- Sideline kick
1 x 100- Cool down

Today was all about last minute stroke corrections, visualizing the swim, and getting the muscles stretched out. I think all those goals were achieved. I did the 500 in 7:00, with moderate effort. If I can sustain that effort and speed for the entire race on Sunday I should be fine based on last year's results. I feel like that is something I can do.
My plan is to link up with the lead group and hang out with them. I'm sure they are going to go out hard, but most of the people at the head of this swim will be people who have done it before. They know the distance better than I do. So I'm going to ninja them, get in the group, hang tough, and try to be as smooth and strong as I can for 40 minutes. Sounds like a long time to swim, but I'm used to sustained efforts over that long thanks to my training. I have high hopes for myself. Maybe too high, but its what I do in the water. I know swimming, and I'm going to use that confidence to get me through. Trust.
Easy run for tomorrow, just to keep moving. Also, tomorrow is Cycle Dirtbag's first century and all of us at Team Dirtbag are proud of him for setting such a high goal and following through. Fight through that, get it done. Hopefully he writes some kind of ride report after he conquers the road that I can link to.

A Live-Fire Brick (Now With More Gunshots!)

Brick Day
Ride
distance- 23.7mi
time- 1:14
Run
distance- approx. 2.4mi
time- 20min
total time- 1:34

Another brick has been placed into the Fortress of Fitness, and its a strong, confident brick at that. Rather than ride down into Waipahu as I have been doing recently I rode instead on to the military base near my house, Schofield. At the beginning of my training I rode here all the time. It is close, it has a good climb, and it feels safe because the roads are well maintained and people drive like they are scared of/respect the MPs on patrol. And did I mention Kolekole Pass, the good climb? Yeah, because there's that. Not the longest climb in the world, but is hits some pretty decent grades, which is important to me as a teacher (get it? get it!), and takes me about fifteen minutes to get up. Any quicker I count as a win. But halfway up today I encountered a sign that one only finds when riding on a military base:

Ohh, that's what all the boom-boom is...

This sign was guarded by two bored looking soldiers and a barricade. I thought I heard more ratt-a-tat-tatting and pew-pew-pewing than normal. So I flipped an n-turn (downhill = n-turn, right? No?), rode back down to the base of the hill, turned around again, rode back to the barricade and the now confused guards, and then back down and off base.
I got home, practiced taking off my shoes while still riding the bike to make for a quicker T2, and I think this is going well and plan on doing it next Sunday, and quick fast threw on my Bikilas to run.
The run plan was a simple out-and-back to the main road. I pushed hard, didn't negative split but came close, and it felt good. It was a solid confidence-building transition run. I remember my first brick and how much that run sucked. Now I feel strong running after a decently fast 23 mile ride. The whole training for an Olympic distance tri has something to to with that I'm sure. My runs overall still aren't where I'm happy, but next Sunday should be successful in that it will be fun.
Rest day tomorrow, swim and game plan for Sunday on Friday.

Early Morning Warm-up

Swim
1 x 150- Warm-up
5 x 200- 100-5, 7, 9/100- 15 strokes or less per lap
4 x 50- Sideline kick
5 x 100- 1, 2, 3, Swim
1 x 100- Cool down

Ok, not the hardest swim in the world. I had some cognitive dissonance going on last night (when I wrote my workout) and this morning (when I did my workout). The workout I wrote was a long 3400 yards made up of the above and distance work. Then I got to the pool this morning and two things happened. One- I remembered I have a long race Sunday and I shouldn't be swimming so many yards so close. Two- I realized I was kind of sore from yesterday's swim and shouldn't stack more sore on top of it if I want to be recovered and as strong as possible for Sunday.
That kind of thing messes with my head. I hate questioning my own workouts. To add on, that 200 set is not the best way to start out a swim. It's a great set, certainly, but it sets a certain tone that is hard to break. To make the 5, 7, 9 breathe pattern successful over 100 yards, and to follow that with long strokes for another 100, one often settles into a rhythm. Couple that rhythm with the mindset of, "Ok, this is a moderately easy swim day," and you get into a slow rut quicker than you can say, "Who the hell is Michelle Bachmann and what makes her think she should be president?" So I cut a good 1200 yards off of the swim, did a few laps at a quick pace to shake the body up, and chilled in the hot tub afterward for a few minutes to relax tight muscles. It's all about mental gaming now, planning the race. The physical is taken care of. Nothing more I can do to prepare my body aside from letting it recover without sitting idle or allowing my triathlon next weekend to suffer.
This is not the end of the workout day, but I've decided due to the extreme difference in tone between my swim workout log and my run workout log to split the write-up in half. The run for today can be found here.

Da Heavy Weekend

Saturday
Swim- 3100yds
run- 6.05mi

Sunday
Ride- 50mi

Big Dirtbag Fitness weekend. Bigger than planned, actually. You see, I planned on swimming Friday but things got in the way and I had to push it back to Saturday morning, pushing my run back to Saturday afternoon, which I think may have contributed to total run fail. Anyway, my swim was pretty stellar. I think having a goal like my upcoming Popo'ia Swim is helping immensely with workout motivation and focus in the water. And I'm laying down some solid splits. Swimming is fun.
Running, however, seems to suck right now for some reason. I don't know why, but for the second weekend run in a row my stomach cramped up and screwed up the second half of my run. I was feeling strong, setting a good pace, and being all kind of positive, when suddenly I was cramping and slowing. Never stopped, but I did slow way down. It turned into a trail run for a while there because I wanted to be off the road in case stopping was required. I've looked at what I was eating before the runs, looked at my hydration during the runs, and I'm really not sure what's causing the problems. I only shut down once in my entire training cycle leading up to the Honolulu Tri and now it's happened twice in two weeks. Frustrating.
Running on the trail also meant that I would encounter wildlife. Not big, exciting wildlife like a pig or a...well, we don't really have big exciting wildlife. However, I did run through a nearly-invisible cloud of gnats hovering mindlessly in the middle of my path. And I destroyed them. Dirtbag Fitness Fun Fact #1: Gnats will stick to sweat.
Dirtbag Fitness Fun Fact #2: When you arrive home from a gnat-filled run, the Super Awesome Wife will make a face, take a picture with a camera that magically appears in her hands, then demand you take a shower immediately if not sooner. *the above picture does not do this justice. I had gnats across my shoulders, down to my waist, and in my hair. Billions of the little bastards. It was a massacre. I'm on trial for war crimes by the Gnat Council.
Sunday was a long ride day. The thing about long rides on the bike is, you really ought to start early. Before the sun gets too high in the sky and temperatures start rising. OR, you could be up late hanging out with friends after spending most of the night battling a severely upset stomach that carried over from the ruined run the day before, causing you to sleep in and not leave on your ride until 11am. It's an option.
But, even with leaving much later than I planned, it was still a good ride. Got really hot a few times, but I also got poured on for about ten minutes. Weather God balance, I guess. I'm pretty happy with how it went. I didn't bonk nearly as bad as I did last week during my 50 miler. Part of that was probably the brutal wind last week as compared to yesterday. I finished in 3 hours 4 minutes, a respectable time. Especially with the climb up Pineapple Hill (which I felt went well and I did in 35 minutes) and the long, shallower but still difficult climb back from Kunia at the end of the ride. I really was gunning for three hours flat and just missed it. Maybe next weekend. I don't know that I like being out on the bike for three hours, but I do like that it makes me feel strong. I'm looking at a century in September so I need to be feeling good after 50. Mileage building. Grind it out and make it smooth.
This was also my first ride with my new saddle and so far I'm very happy. I will write a full review after a few more times out to be sure my posterior has had ample opportunity to form an opinion.

We Have a Swim!

Bike Day
distance- 18mi
time- 50 minutes

I'm really pretty pleased with how I laid this down. But much more excited about the below.

Swim Day
1 x 150- Warm-up
5 x 200- 3:00
3 x 50- Sideline kick
5 x 100- IM
5 x 100- 1, 2, 3, Swim
1 x 500- 6:53
1 x 100- Cool down
total- 2900 yds

Ladies and gentlemen of Team Dirtbag and the Dirtbag Fitness Universe, your favorite Dirtbag is pumped. Excited. Rock and rolling. I've just registered for the Popoi'a Open Water Swim, a 1.6mi race on Sunday, June 19th.
Those of you who know me or who have been following this blog know that swimming is my forte. Of the three disciplines of triathlon, the swim is my least worry. This puts me in a strange camp among triathletes, since most of them come from cycling or running backgrounds. And it means that I get to watch everyone pass me on the bike and run. But not this time. This time its swim, swim, and only swim. And I couldn't be happier.
You may remember me having gripes during the training cycle for the Honolulu Tri about my swimming. I felt like it wasn't coming together during workouts. After today, I think I know why. I wasn't worried about the swim. My focus was on the other two events, because I know my swim will take care of itself. So when I was in the water I was working hard, but never as hard as I could have been. I was saving for the afternoon's bludgeoning.
For the next 20 days, there will be none of that. I will still be biking and running, of course. But my focus is going to be almost completely in the water. I want to do well on the 19th. Not kind of well, but really, really well. I looked at the finisher times from last year and the winner laid down a 35 something. I don't think that's a reality. But the guy who won my age group did a 40:35. That's right about where I estimate my time to be. Watch as I drop math on your heads:
The Honolulu Olympic Tri was 1640yds. 1.6 miles is 2800yds. That is an increase of 1200yds.
1640yds + 1200 = 2840
My swim time at the Honolulu Tri was 23:15. Let's assume I hold a 1:30 pace for the next 1200yds, which means I do that in about 18 minutes. That gives me a total swim time of 41:15.
23:15 + 18:00 = 41:15
BUT, this math does not take in to account the conserving I was doing during the triathlon's swim leg. I had two big sections to come so there was a lot of swimming at less that absolute capacity. And I still averaged a 1:33 pace. I know, I know, I know, I can push harder than that. Especially with people around me also pushing.
My only concern is during my last training cycle I only broke 2900 yards a few times, and not for a while. So today that distance was my goal and I felt strong the whole time. There was some stroke work in there, but I killed the IM set and the 200s. And check out that 500 time at the end. I worked that bad boy hard and put in a 6:53. Killer pace right there. The difference is there will be much more legs than normal. I save my legs for the bike and run during a triathlon, because my stroke is strong enough to get by. But no bike or run, no reason to save the kick.
So tomorrow morning I'm going to be back in the water for another big workout before my first day teaching summer school. I'm looking for at least ten good swims by the 17th, which is plenty doable. I'm really looking forward to trying to break it off during a short, intense training cycle. And I'm looking forward to going after some Masters swimmers and seeing if I've still got it.