Sunday, June 28, 2015

Races, Races, Races

Greetings, KB & Coffee Lovers!

Blog posts here have been pretty sparse. Just haven't thought about posting anything recently since I've been very busy this month with putting on 5 race & contest events, plus doing another 5K race myself.

I have mainly been getting in runs in the morning, an occasional bike ride some mornings, and a handful of afternoons with bike rides as well. Really enjoying the heck out of my fat bike out in the country.

I finally raced my first 5K of the season at Hillsboro, taking 1st in my age and watching a few fellow runners that I run with on our running club, they ended up taking 1st in their age groups too!  A big surprise was seeing a former athlete I coached when he was in junior high, now running for a D-I college, taking the 5K race in 14:57!  That was a great surprise to see for me as his former coach.

The races I've put on were on back to back nights, then 3 events in one week: a tag team race, a 5K/10K night, and also a Kids Dash & Jumps Contest. Things should tame down a bit after this last week.

As far as other races to do, I think I will probably do an area 5K close to the 4th of July if I can.  There is also another area race in a couple of weeks I will probably try too.

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As far as coffee goes, I'm enjoying a mix of the regular Keurig options in the grocery store, plus some Gourmet Black and Café Latte options from OG.  A Café Latte blended in with some basic coffee from a K-cup tastes pretty well.

Order up some OG coffee, tea, and other products at http://tinyurl.com/kbcoffee

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Yes, I have been attacking the kettlebells again, too. Doing a fair amount of Swings as usual. Will be adding in Cleans plus Cleans and Presses soon, too. Til next time, keep swinging and sipping!

Monday, June 1, 2015

Duathlon Done, Return to KB's

Greetings,

Well, my first Duathlon is in the books, it was a very enduring race to get through for me. Very similar to the past sprint triathlons I've done, but a bit different of course.
The sprint tri's were 500m swim, 12 mile bike, 5K run. The duathlon was 5K run, 25K bike, (15.5 miles) and 5K run to finish.

My goals were:
1. Get under 2 hours total time
2. Aim for 24 minute 5K's as my pace
3. Try to get the bike race in under an hour

Well, I got the 5K's done in approximately 24 minutes each, with the first mile being 7:15-20 paces and then slowing down for miles 2 & 3.

I did get under 2 hours of time, at 1:54 and change.

The bike ride was the hardest to get through on the 2nd half of the race. 

At the actual halfway point of the race, I was at a 24 minute 5K with transition time, meaning I hopped on the bike at 24 minutes. I made the halfway point on the bike ride at 48... I was hoping I could make it back decently at 4 minutes/mile and really grab a good time.  However, the wind and cold greatly slowed me down, as well as others in the race too.  I was down from 3 min/mile pace with the wind to my back, to a 10-11mph, under 6 minute/mile pace for a ride into the wind for the next 7.75 miles.  It was tough mentally to get through, but I finished the last half in 42 minutes on the bike. Then it was time to see what was left in the tank for the last 5K stretch.

I felt a little twinge in my right calf, and figured I better take a short water break at the turn-around for the last 2.5K of the 5K. I slowed down, and rested to get a good glass of water, which really made a difference to finish out the race.  The wind wasn't much of a factor on the 5K course since it was on a nice bike path that went mostly east/west with a northerly wind.

All in all, I was happy with my time and took a nice day of rest on Sunday.

My friend from college, Nick, took 5th overall and 1st in our 30-39 age group. I took 9th in the age group. 44th overall out of 85 participants.

If I was to do this again, I will definitely look at a faster bike to get. My bike was a Schwinn Hybrid bike for road and gravel, so it was a cross between a mountain bike and a road touring bike.  Since the ride was all on road, a true road bike for racing would be best to get, as a large majority of those bikes were racing bikes.

Today I started back up with a KB Swings protocol, as I feel its time to hit them once again after almost a 2 month absence.  I devoted a lot of time to runs and rides, accumulating 71.5 miles of runs and 104 miles of rides total in the month of May alone.
June is busy with a few races and I will back off and still cross-train a lot with most likely alternating runs and rides each day, with longer rides on the weekends if time allows.

I'm also hitting some new coffee with the OG Café Latte.  Enjoy a cup and order some at http://tinyurl.com/kbcoffee

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Swing & Sip!
Coach Rick