LIVESTRONG Challenge Update

September 19th, 2009 No Comments

Team Tuma: Murray Webb and Gerry de Ocampo

Team Tuma: Murray Webb and Gerry de Ocampo

My bike riding has increased considerably in the last month as I prepare for the LIVESTRONG Challenge next month in Austin, Texas. As part of my triathlon training, which is basically multi-sport cross training, my rides have become increasingly longer each week. I started distance training in earnest four weeks ago with a two-hour ride. The subsequent weeks have basically been one hour longer in length.

Today, my Breakaway buddy, Eric, and I rode 84 miles over 4:36. We were supposed to ride for five hours, but Eric was too tired, still recuperating from his business travel jet lag and lack of sleep.

The ride today is a significant milestone for me: I felt strong over the whole 84 miles and could have kept going. This is my first bike ride ever where I did not feel tired or have my legs bonk out. I’m pretty stoked. I would say that I am definitely ready for the LIVESTRONG Challenge just four weeks away.

Next week, my bike ride will be a little shorter as part of a recovery week. The following week I have my last sprint triathlon of the summer season. I hope to break the one-hour barrier during that race.

And for my last long ride before the Austin trip, I plan to ride 120 miles with my Team Tuma teammate, Murray Webb. 120 miles! I don’t know what I was thinking when I committed to that. We are going to do the route for the Tour de Poway Century ride (about 102 miles plus an additional 20 miles).

On the fundraising front, I’ve modified my fundraising goal to $3000. I’m pleased to report that I’m in the final stretch of the fundraising effort with only $450 remaining as of today. I started a Facebook and Twitter campaign encouraging people to give a small donation.

Can you help me with a small donation to reach my LIVESTRONG goal? The Lance Armstrong Foundation helps cancer patients and their families. I’m looking for:

  • 5 people to give a one-time donation of $100
  • 11 people to give a one-time donation of $50
  • 22 people to give a one-time donation of $25

Please donate. You can help save lives.

Long Rides

September 12th, 2009 No Comments

In preparation for my LIVESTRONG ride in Austin, Texas next month I’ve been doing some long rides for the last three weeks, starting out with two hours, three and a half hours, and today with four hours.

Two hours, no problem. Rode to the coast at Carlsbad with Murray.

Three and a half hours, legs bonked out at 60 miles, but rode on for 10 more.

Today’s four hour ride, legs bonked out at 70 miles, rode for 8 more, and then ran for half an hour afterwards for three miles.

The last two rides have been fun, riding at a challenging pace with my buddy from Breakaway Training, Eric Heiser. I decided to do my long rides with Eric since he’s training for Ironman Arizona in November. I like the rides because we push hard. With my legs tiring at mile 70, 10 miles later than the previous water, the ride was an improvement over last week. At this rate, I will most definitely be ready for Austin in October.

Surprisingly, I got a flat tire near the end of the ride today. The culprit was a sharp metal shard that looked like a nail. It punctured my rear tire and deflated the tube almost instantaneously. The tire change went relatively quickly. It was definitely the quickest tire change for me.

Two negative things about the flat repair:

  1. CO2 cartridge adapter did not work (glad Eric was there to let me use his).
  2. Inner tube valve on brand new inner tube had a loose screw, which is a defect.

I need to replace the tube later so that I don’t have to worry about the valve. And guess where I bought those two pieces of garbage? Yup, yet two more reasons not to buy your bikes or bike stuff there.

First Long Brick

August 30th, 2009 No Comments

Yesterday, I figured if I said let’s leave by 6:30 AM, then for sure we’d be out the door by 7:00 AM. Murray was never late for any of his personal training sessions with me at LA|FITNESS, but I’ve learned that if we need to be somewhere at a certain time, I need to plan for at least half an hour of “Murray” time.

We did leave by 7:00 for our two-hour bike ride to the coast in Carlsbad. It was a fairly comfortable ride for me, averaging a slower speed than what I usually ride. We rode at about 17 mph for 34 miles. Both of us had two hours on the bike as our planned workout.

Murray had a 10-mile run planned afterwards, and I figured it would be no big deal to join him. I was scheduled for a 20-minute brick run afterwards, but running 10 miles would be significantly longer than 20 minutes. I’m pleased to say that I did complete all 10 miles even though the temperature had risen to 105 degrees. The last two miles were pretty painful, nevertheless, I trudged on, refusing to walk. I think my average pace was about a 12-minute mile.

This milestone was a good wake up call for me. I know I have a long ways to go if I want to get close to my goal of going under 5:30 for my first half Ironman in March, 2010 @ California 70.3. By then I want to be at a level of fitness where I can handle that final half marathon run with no problem and still complete the run in under 1:40.

I have more than seven months to prepare.

The Quest for Ironman Begins

August 20th, 2009 No Comments

Now that I’ve achieved my goal of the Triple Crown in 2009, I’m shifting my focus to 2010 and beyond.

In the long term, I would like to complete an Ironman race in 2011. I’m thinking of one of these:

  • Ironman Cozumel (November 2011)
  • Ironman Florida (November 2011)
  • Ironman Hawaii (if I get in through the lottery, October 2011)

The Ironman race is 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run (full marathon) for a total of 140.6 miles. Sounds crazy? It is.

During the year that I do my first Ironman, I definitely want to do Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, as well as run a couple of full marathons (like Carlsbad in January 2011 and maybe the NYC Marathon in November 2011).

In the near term, I plan to have only two or three A races in 2010, all focused on the half-Ironman distance:

As the name implies, the half-Ironman race is 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, and 13.1-mile run (half marathon) for a total 0f 70.3 miles.

If my training is going well, I may do:

  • Wildflower (long course), April 30 – May 2, 2010
  • Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (in Kona), June 5, 2010

Bring it!

Triple Training

August 2nd, 2009 No Comments

3. Three sports. Multi-sport. This is triathlon training.

Swimming: I’ve probably had the three best days of swimming in the last five months that I’ve been training as a triathlete. Last Wednesday’s pool workout was my longest yardage at 2400 yards, but I felt fantastic afterwards. Friday’s cove swim was my fastest time ever for a 1-mile swim in the open ocean at 36 minutes with breaks at the buoys. While that’s not super fast, it does mean that I’m very capable of completing the half Ironman swim distance. The water at the cove was unusually calm and warm. Today’s open water swim at La Jolla Shores was also very good for me (2000 yards). We swam and ran afterwards. Not a single ounce of fatigue.

Running: Saturday I ran 14 miles. Today I ran a little over five miles. I recovered well and felt fantastic today.

Cycling: After the solid swim-run workout this morning, I went for an easy 22-mile bike ride in the afternoon. In the past I would have been exhausted and my legs would have been fatigued. Today, no problem after the ride.

All in all, this has been the best week of training in my young life as a triathlete!

In and Out of Transition

July 18th, 2009 No Comments

tri-shoes-T1

Tri shoes on bike for T1

Not a long post here. Just wanted to say I’m pretty proud of myself for learning how to get in and out of my tri shoes with the shoes still on the bike. I had a successful practice time today doing both. It’s not the fastest or the prettiest, but I’m definitely going to start the bike route with my shoes on the bike for next weekend’s race.

As I started this transition practice, I was kinda scared, but after you actually start pedaling on top of the shoes, it’s actually not that difficult to slip your feet right into the shoe as you ride. I’m going to practice again next weekend before the race, but with rubber bands to hold the shoes in place. The rubber bands break off once you begin pedaling.

The 7-min Barrier

July 9th, 2009 No Comments

I’ve been attending the Breakaway Tuesday night turbo spin class each week. As a veteran “spinner” at the gym, I can say that the turbo class put on by Breakaway is by far tougher than any spin class I have ever taken in the gym. It consists of race-pace or sprint intervals for about 45 minutes followed by a short run. In tri-language, that’s called a “brick”. Ever since my running debacle at my last race, I’ve been paying closer attention to my effort levels when I run. I think I’ve made a breakthrough in the last couple of run workouts. For whatever reason, I found an increased determination to push myself to sustain a high cadence while running, especially after the spin class. Typically, in my last two races, I’ve felt really tired after my bike segment, and then the run is a huge struggle. So to work on that endurance, I decided to push myself on my runs even more, especially if the runs occur after a bike ride.

My fastest race pace to date has been 7:05, which was when I set my 5K PR at the Carlsbad 5000 last April. This past Tuesday, I ran three miles after the turbo spin in 20:55, breaking the 7-min barrier for 6:59. And even though I felt out of breath after the run, I think I did a decent job of maintaining a consistent, high-rate cadence. Because of this recent breakthrough, I believe I can achieve a new Half Marathon PR in my upcoming race in August. I’d like to finish the AFC Half in 1:40 or better. I understand there are hills towards the end of the course. In the event that I don’t beat 1:40, I plan to beat that time in the Silver Strand Half in November because it’s a flat, point-to-point course.

Riding for Team Tuma

July 6th, 2009 No Comments

Last week I learned that the wife of a very close friend has ** cancer **. Even though I haven’t been a big part of Dennis and Vivien’s lives since my college days with Dennis, I feel the weight of this sad news very deeply. Dennis is more than a brother to me. He played a big part of my life while I was at UCLA, helping me grow in my new faith as a Christian. For those short years at UCLA over 20 years ago I learned a lot from Dennis about life and living it as a Christian. Needless to say, Dennis is one of two mentors in my life; he’s more like a dad and brother than a friend.

So I grieve with Dennis and Vivien today as I have learned that her cancer is in Stage 4.

  • Follow their journey.
  • Please pray for healing and comfort for Vivien, Dennis, and their family of six kids.
  • Join my LIVESTRONG team and donate to a great cause. Any amount is worthy for helping to find a cure.

In honor of Vivien for the rest of the summer triathlon season, I am dedicating all my hours of training, all my races, and the LIVESTRONG Challenge in October to Team Tuma. I hope to meet my fundraising goals for the ride as well as raise some additional funds to get a special jersey designed for Team Tuma.

BT Elfin Ride

July 4th, 2009 No Comments

With the launch of this web site earlier this morning, this had shaped up to be a late night going to bed at 1:30 AM, but I was pretty excited to try the Breakaway Training Saturday ride for the second time, even with only five hours or so of sleep. Armed this time with the course’s turn-by-turn directions mapped on my Garmin 705 GPS I knew that I would not be getting lost this time.

According to Coach Luke, it was supposed to be a slower, easier ride this morning, but of course, I didn’t believe that. Starting in the Vons parking lot in La Jolla, the first 20 miles of the course are relatively flat, followed by a steep climb up the way to Rancho Santa Fe Road. It then turns into Elfin Forest into Escondido and heads back to the coast via Del Dios Highway. The way back to La Jolla culmintates up “the hill” on Torrey Pines Road, so basically this course is 40 miles of mostly rolling hills. It’s a tough ride.

When I rode it for the first time last weekend, I got dropped at the start of the first and steepest climb. By the time I made it up to Rancho Santa Fe, the rest of the fast group (mostly professional triathletes) were long gone. Then I forgot the road that you take to get to the Elfin Forest, and so I was lost for awhile. I ended up finishing the ride by myself. Thankfully, I used my iPhone to look up the ride on the Breakaway web site.

This time around my goal was to hang with the regular folks and not get lost while the pros do their thing. I’m happy to report that for the first half, I kept up with the humans, even on the climbs. At the start of the climbing, I took off with the pros. Coach Felipe instructed Chris not to stand up on the climbs, which would “slow” the pace down. The funny thing though is that Chris’ sitting down pace is faster than my pace standing up and attacking. So the pros took off and I never saw them after that.

With the pros gone, I focused on my main climbing goal for the ride, and attacked the hill with the intent of not getting dropped among the regular folks. I made it up the first climb successfully without getting dropped at Rancho Santa Fe, that is, I could still see most of my group ahead of me in my sights. Fortunately, before Elfin Forest, there is a speedy downhill before the steep climb up San Elijo.  And as we entered the Elfin Forest, I was near the head of the “regular” pack. In fact, of the regular folks, I arrived first at the regroup stop after leaving the Elfin Forest.I would have arrived second, but Eric had to take a pit stop behind one of the Elfin trees :) which allowed me to speed ahead. At the regroup at this small Assembly of God church, I guess it’s a rite of passage for cyclists to go to the bathroom behind the church office. I don’t think that’s very nice and I’m not sure if I’ll be doing that again on the next ride. I would prefer that we stop at the Chevron gas station prior to entering the Elfin Forest, but I think people want to keep riding through the Elfin Forest to the stop at the church because the church marks the halfway point of the course.

In any case after the regroup, I remembered that my bike ride this week was supposed to be a “recovery” ride after last weekend’s race in Zone 2. So I guess attacking the rolling hills was not part of this week’s training plan. For the second half of the ride, I rode slower in Zone 2 and didn’t attack for the remainder of the course. Overall, I was pleased with my performance on the first half of the ride, and still carried out my training plan of riding in the slower Zone 2 for the rest of the ride.

On another note, I’m trying this electronic log (http://workoutlog.com) to record all my workouts (weights, swim, bike, and run). It’s free for 15 days, and then I’ll decide if I want to continue before I pay for the subscription. So far, I like it, especially the fact that you can record all the workouts in one spot. Currently, I record my weightlifting on a paperback log and my runs on Running Ahead (http://runningahead.com). I haven’t recorded my swims or bike rides until now. So we’ll see how I like it in a couple of weeks.

Why Breakaway

June 22nd, 2009 2 Comments

A few days before I did my first triathlon, I told my personal trainer at LA|FITNESS that was going to stop training with him and begin training with Breakaway Training. I decided to go with Breakaway for the following reasons:

  1. I had reached a level of fitness with my second personal trainer at the gym and needed to be challenged.
  2. I decided to compete in triathlons.
  3. I reached a plateau in my cycling and running; I needed to find a new way to take it to another level.

In the last two months that I’ve trained with Breakaway, I’ve seen tremendous gains in my performance. Specifically, my race pace for running has increased from 7.5 mph to anywhere from 8 to 8.5 mph. With enough rest I hope to run at 9 mph in my next half marathon in August. I’ve made a huge improvement in my cycling speed as well. I’ve experienced two successful rides with the “B” group of San Diego Bicycle Club. Prior to Breakaway, I could not keep up with that group.

Breakaway provides me with a customized training plan each month with specific durations and activities for training: weightlifting, running, cycling, and swimming. I also have a customized swim workout that I do once a week. There are three weekly group coached sessions available as well:

  • Tuesday night Brick – Turbo spin class + run
  • Thursday night Track – usually running torturous intervals in circles
  • Sunday morning – mixed workout

I’ve recently added two un-coached group sessions:

  • Friday night Cove swim – half-mile or one-mile ocean swim at La Jolla Cove with dozens of other triathletes
  • Saturday morning cycling – 60-mile course with hills that make the “B” ride at SDBC look really tame

I still don’t like swimming very much, but I’ve seen improvements in my ocean swimming, like increased speed and increased comfortability being in the water. This is a huge improvement for me considering that during my first ocean swim with Breakaway, I was terrified and practically hyperventilating.

I went on the bike course for the first time this past Saturday, and got dropped on the hills. It’s a pretty tough course. I intend to keep doing it until I’m good at it because I think it will be perfect preparation for me to do a tough half Ironman (70.3).

Oh yeah, and my coach has a cool name, Luke Walton. No, not the lame one from the Los Angeles Lakers and the University of Arizona.

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