December 5th, 2011 Scott
Yesterday I ran my second marathon; the Naha Marathon. Two years ago I ran in the Okinawa Marathon and this time I ran in support of my wife as she attempted her first. In discussions with many people who have done both marathons, I’ve found that everyone has a strong opinion as to which one is more difficult. What’s been interesting is that the opinions have been split 50/50. Now ‘ll add my thoughts as to why that is because I think they both have challenges and they both have aspects that are easier than the other but it ultimately depends on your strengths and intended pace that will determine which marathon you prefer.
The Naha is the first weekend of December and the Okinawa is the third weekend in February. They both have a six hour and fifteen minute time limits but the Naha has 25,000 participants while the Okinawa is typically around 10,000. The Naha has one really noticeable hill and a long slow climb to the mid point while the Okinawa has four very distinct climbs. For me, those are the key characteristics to each run.
My goal two years ago in the Okinawa was to break four hours. My goal yesterday was to finish before the 6:15 deadline with my wife. These different goals likely influenced what I saw because the biggest challenge yesterday was the crowd. We ran in a dense pack of people from the start line to the finish line. It was very challenging to pick your pace and stick with it. In fact, it was easier in the first 10k because we had two lanes, but after they restricted it to one lane we stayed in a full pack all the way to the finish lap around the track. Even more interesting was that we made it to each of the cutoff points (21k, 33k, and finish) by less than three minutes. We finished around 16,000th which means around 9,000 people didn’t make the cutoffs. Despite the fact that we were at the tail end of the pack after each mid point cut, we were still in a dense mob of runners. This made for a festive and entertaining run to the finish but also took more energy out of us as we dodged traffic and tried to get around slower runners.
In the Okinawa, I was in a dense crowd there too but only for about the first 10k. After that, I had plenty of room and ran most of the second half in complete isolation. This made it easier to hold my own pace, but it also was mentally more taxing being on my own.
If I could run the two courses alone, the Naha would be WAY easier because the hills are very gentle and for the most part you climb to the mid point and you descend to the finish. This facilitates a run that gives you the magical ‘negative split’ that all coaches always want you to run (and most personal records are set this way). Okinawa, on the other hand, has four very distinct and steep climbs and a final descent near the end that is painfully steep. Did I mention that I lost two toenails after that run? Yesterday didn’t bother my toes at all.
If I decide to ever do another marathon, I doubt I’ll do Naha. It’s just too crowded and too difficult to run my run. However, your view would likely be much different from the front if you are a sub three hour marathoner. If that’s you, then you’d probably really enjoy this race.
Posted in Okinawa, Triathlon | No Comments »
June 20th, 2011 Scott
Yesterday, Sunday June 19th, I placed 2nd in the Miyako 100km road race. I still can’t believe it. The phrase “sometimes it’s better to be lucky than be good” comes to my mind when I think about it. I did have a great tactical race, but I certainly wasn’t the second strongest rider in the seven man final sprint. This blog entry is going to be a race report that non-bicycle racers might not find too interesting, but I really want to share how my day want for other riders so that they may perhaps one day find themselves in a similar position of luck.
Tour de Miyako Course (Click for larger view)
This race circles the entire island. As you can see on the map, it is a triangle shape island with short bridges to smaller islands at each point. The race start near the Southwest point and ran in a clockwise direction. As is the case with all Japanese amateur racing that I’ve been involved with, there are no categories like there is in US cycling. However, there are almost always multiple lengths of races run and the better riders usually choose the longer races. In yesterday’s race, there was a 160km course, and the 100k course. Most of the riders in the long course would be comparable to a Cat. 1 or 2 rider in the states (although some riders got blown off the back about 20km into the race so they chose poorly). The 100km field had over 350 riders and the 160km field had around 140 riders. These large fields are also common in Japanese races. Interestingly, sandbagging doesn’t really happen despite the fact that there are no divisions and you are free to choose which ever course you’d like. I went to this race with my riding partner who had done it the first time the year before and encouraged me to come along this time. He seemed to think I might be able to do well in it.
The race started at 7:10 AM with a neutral roll out for the first 5km. We followed a car at low speed over the bridge and around the first island in the lower left corner of the map (Kurima Island). On the hard left turn back onto the main road, the race started. My strategy was to stay near the front to be clear of crashes but not so close to the front that I’d spend time working in the wind. With a field of over 300 riders and only one lane of road available, group positioning was crucial. Even though the roads were open to opposing traffic and we weren’t supposed to cross the centerline, riders did anyway and often times at their own high risk. More than once opposing traffic had to pull off the road because cyclists wouldn’t yield to them. We had several moto scooters patrolling up and down the pack constantly blowing the horns when seeing riders cross the centerline, but it didn’t help much. We lined up at the front on the start line, but ended up around 40 – 50 riders back once the race got past the neutral zone. This was a bit further back than I wanted to be, but it was too difficult to move forward without expanding too much energy. I wanted to conserve as much energy as possible so that I would have good legs when it mattered.
Unfortunately, about 20km into the race our positioning almost bit us badly. We had a wreck occur about three bike lengths in front of us and only barely cleared the carnage. Staying out of the wind and also avoiding these wrecks were critical concerns. Weighing on my mind was the fact that this was the first weekend after school got out for the summer and on two previous occasions in the past on this weekend I’ve left bike races in an ambulance. I needed to make sure I didn’t do that again. Despite the centerline foolishness and the language barrier, we did find that the forward placed cyclists did an excellent job of communicating problems. We almost always heard a warning accompanied by hand gestures well before we’d notice any change in the speed and/or direction of the group. These riders were very courteous about getting the messages back to the rest of us.
The turnaround at the small island on the North tip marked the start of our 60km’s of travel directly into the wind. The pace during this section felt very slow and the small breakaway that had formed was quickly soaked back up into the pack as nobody was interested in driving hard into the wind. Back where we were it felt like a nice easy recovery ride. We only had to stay sharp for the occasional turn or centerline dodger jumping back across the line. We had a couple of small wrecks during this section near us but they didn’t have a direct impact to our group position. It was also at this point that getting bottles at the aid stations became critical. The temperature at the start of the race was 82 degrees and was up to 88 by the finish. Also, the humidity was 80% which compounded the heat index mightily. Unfortunately, a lot of riders didn’t deal well with the aid stations and coming to a complete stop became the norm. Early on in the race this didn’t bother me much because I knew it would all come back together. However, at the 68km (about 2/3rds of the way down the long side of the island) aid station, the lead group of 20 or so riders HAMMERED away from the station and it became clear that these areas could become dangerous places to get dropped. That was the first time I ‘burned a match’. Up until that point, I had kept heart rate low and my legs fresh. I hammered hard for about 90 seconds to connect back with the group only to find them slow up and relax while drinking. The group all came together again. I had burned a match that I didn’t need to, but I hadn’t gone too deeply so I had hoped it wouldn’t hurt me too much for the finish.
Upon arrival at the third and final point of the triangle, I had indicated to my riding partner that I felt the race would really start here. We had about 20km to go and would be turning downwind. The pace would be high and the likelihood of a breakaway staying clear was something to consider. We would need to move closer to the front and be very attentive. We were both set with bottles, but Tim mentioned having another one to pour over our heads would be good. I agreed that if we could get a bottle without too much pain to use for that purpose that we should do so at the next opportunity. That opportunity was just past the turn on this third point and it started getting difficult with stopped cyclists and bouncing bottles. I also noticed the lead group hammering away from the aid station again. I told Tim to forget it and GO!
This gap closing sequence took a little longer to finish, but I had a few other riders who wanted to close it as well and I was able to follow other guys right up to the lead group. No match burned this time around. At this point, I felt good, the pace was high, and I had moved up to the 20th position or so. I started looking for others trying to move forward so I could follow them up rather than work in the wind on my own (or worse; work for someone else and have them follow me). At the 90km mark with 10km to go, the group hit a small rise and someone in front of me touched wheels. We were tightly packed and it looked like dominos going down right in front of me. By the time I reached the crash, it was a line of cyclists all the way across the road from curb to curb. I had to pick my bike up (while straddling it still) and walk it up around the curb and back to get around the tangle of bikes and riders. Once I clipped back in and looked ahead, I saw serious trouble. In the time it had taken me to get clear, a group of about 10 riders were significantly up the road with about 5-7 more in between trying desperately to get back on to the lead group.
Looking back over my GPS data this morning, I can see that it recorded the next sequence of events just as I remember them. It was a gentle climb uphill and I BURIED myself for the next 2:35 to catch the lead group. I was flying by the other ‘in between’ riders so fast they couldn’t even jump my wheel. I reach the lead group just as they hit the base of another hill and I was absolutely at my limit. I got ready to dig even deeper to hang with them on the hill and found that they weren’t too anxious to climb hard. In fact, I felt like the next 5km were fairly reasonable. I’ve been in select small groups at the end of races before, but I always was trashed and was doing everything I could just to hang on. This time was different. I felt like they were all going far slower than I expected. I was concerned that we would end up with a whole bunch of riders connecting back with us if we continued to go this slow.
We did collect a few riders, but the group stayed under 15 members as we hit the 5km mark. I hadn’t been in the wind at all and had fully recovered from my effort to connect with the group after the crash. I was counting heads and deciding that perhaps I could make the top 10 if I worked it well. I could see that we had a few more than that in the group though so I needed to be a little closer to the front. It was at this point that a couple of riders attacked and I jumped on their wheel. They lifted after about 100m though and we all came back together. However, I now found myself second wheel behind a reluctant lead out man. He kept slowing up hoping for someone to come around, but nobody ever did. NOBODY wanted to be in front.
We had a hard let turn with 2km to go and the positioning all remained the same, except the guy in front did a slow acceleration up to 25mph or so. I don’t think this was a tactically good decision as he just fried himself but brought all of us along as baggage while doing it.
I am not a sprinter. Strength is my weakest component to my cycling. However, my strength is my time trailing ability. I knew that hanging with these guys to the final 200m would not be in my best interest if I felt good; which I did. So I had decided that I would hammer at the 1km mark and try to create enough of a gap to keep the sprinters from coming around me and just attempt to hold on. It was a gamble and it depended on how long I could hold pace (how long will my last match burn?) and how fried everyone in the group with me was feeling.
Well, my play never had a chance to be tried because three riders jumped from behind me at the 1km sign and I grabbed their wheel. We were hauling FAST and I knew I could hold the speed for 750m and was congratulating myself for locking up 4th place as nobody else had gotten on my wheel. Right after that secret celebration in my head started, the three guys in front of me all lifted. Apparently the lead guy wasn’t interested in towing three of us with him to the finish line. My dreams of a 4th place finish evaporated as we came back together once again (in hindsight, a counter attact right at that moment he lifted might’ve been a successful strategy…but that’s hindsight for you). The road swept left and then right into the final 200m and I nearly crossed up wheels with two guys as everyone’s lines were inconsistent through the curve and as the splintered group came back together. The 200m to go flag surprised me. I rode the finish the day before and the last km seemed longer. Looking back at the data this morning, I see that we were covering the last 2 km at 30 – 32 mph so no wonder the finishing flag showed up quicker.
Awards podium...top six riders
So, the final 200m straight finish line found me once again on fourth wheel. A couple of guys to my left faded quickly. The guy at the front started to fade as the three of us moved by him on his right. 100m to go. I’m watching myself go by the guy who was leading thinking, “What are you doing? You were winning! Now I’m passing you? That can’t be right”. Now I’m third wheel and the tempo keeps climbing. My goal is to simply stay on the wheel. The guy in front of me jumps and I go with him. I watch the guy who was in first start sliding backward. Clearly the guy I’m on the wheel of is going to win. However, second place is still up in the air. 50m to go. I keep trying to hold the wheel and I am now even with the other guy. 25m to go. I put everything I can into the bike; the guy next to me is standing and straining to hold the speed, but I’m on the wheel of the winner and he tows me clear. Finish line: I get second place by 3/4 of a bike length. First through seventh positions all come within one second of one another.
I just placed 2nd in a seven man straight up sprint…and I’m not a sprinter…but I did grab the right wheel. Sometimes it IS better to be lucky than be good.
Final Results. Click to enlarge.
The bottom line is that I had a good strategy for the race and got some good luck as well. I conserved as much energy as possible and only used it when I absolutely had to. I also responded to race critical situations quickly and decisively. My only major flaw was getting stuck behind the wreck at the 90km mark. Had I not had to burn up so much energy there, I might’ve had something even more to give at the finish. This was the second longest race I’ve done, but it also felt like the easiest. I certainly had good fitness, but that just allowed to come to the table and play the game. My tactics and strategy carried me the rest of the way.
Posted in Bicycling, Health and wellness, Okinawa, Travel | 1 Comment »
April 15th, 2011 Scott
Gina and I just finished a five day trip to Taiwan. We had planned to go to Tokyo for spring break over a year ago but cancelled our flights and hotel reservations when it became clear that travelling to Tokyo would be ill advised considering the nature of the radiation issues still occurring in the vicinity. While the DoD hasn’t forbidden us from travelling to the area, they have closed the hotel we were going to stay at and have highly recommended that all non essential travel to mainland Japan be postponed.
So, in an effort to find something relatively close and inexpensive we looked into Taiwan and Hong Kong. Both of these destinations are easy non-stop flights for us from Okinawa but ultimately we chose Taiwan because the costs were cheaper there. I’m glad we made the decision to go there because we had a great time.
Gina strolls toward me near our hotel
Our hotel was a three star in a fairly gritty neighborhood just outside the Ximen Subway station. This area is known as the theater district due to the large numbers of movie theaters in the area and it is the home of the Taipei National Orchestra.
Good eats in Taipei
The Longshan Temple is close by as well as the Huashi night market. Right out the door of our hotel was an extensive outdoor tourist shopping area with a great selection of clothing shops and a wide variety of food choices as well. If you were daring, there was much street food to be had, but nicer restaurants also could be found. We discovered the costs of materials (clothes or electronics) to be high, while the costs of foods (restaurant or grocery store) to be quite cheap. We rarely spent more than $10 for a meal for both of us. English was spoken in the hotel and a bit in the shops, but we were the only Westerners in sight. You can get a lot done by pointing and nodding. Most of the tourists were from mainland China and also from Japan. At the airport we had to go through a radiation detector because we had come from a flight originating in Japan.
Taipei 101
Later in the evening of the first day we visited the Taipei 101 building. Until recently, it was the tallest building in the world. Visiting at night I thought would be enjoyable for seeing Taipei lit up. However, the outdoor viewing deck was closed and the city really wasn’t all that lit up so the view was not terribly impressive. The speed of the elevator ride to the top was impressive however. My ears popped a couple of times as we shot up to the 89th floor. What was interesting was the visible building damper and an extensive photo exhibition of the Taipei 101 building. I saw many great photographs that all included the building in some way.
After trying a ice cream beer float at the top, we returned to our neighborhood to visit the Longshan Temple and the night market. This part of our tour was very interesting. I find markets to be a fantastic place to photograph people and really get a feel for how the locals look and interact with one another.
Temple Bell
On our second day, we were picked up by our tour guide “Taiwan Tom Jones” and visited another temple as well as the Martyr’s Shrine and the National Museum. At the shrine, the guards change ever hour in a ceremony that takes 30 minutes. The drill was impressive. At the National Museum, was saw amazing artifacts that Chiang Kai-Shek took with him from Beijing after losing control of China to the Communists. Unfortunately, thousands of other Chinese were there too and it was unbelievably difficult to see anything. These people were very rude and pushy and neither Gina nor myself deal with that very well. We couldn’t wait to get out of there. The last stop in the morning tour was Chian Kai-Shek’s Memorial Hall.
Taiwan Tom Jones & Gina
In the afternoon, we drove out of the city to the North Coast and visited some fascinating rock formations at the ocean side before going up into the mountains to a small village that had an enormously popular day market. Once again, the opportunity to true unique food was all around us…if we dared.
The next day we had an early start as we were picked up at 6:20 AM to go to the local airport and catch a 30 minute flight to Hualien. This smaller city is the gateway into Taroko Gorge and this day was the highlight of the trip. 60% of Taiwan is covered by mountains. Their tallest peak is higher than Mt. Fuji in Japan at 12,966 feet. They actually had a ski area on the island at one point and regularly get snow. This seems odd to me as it is so close to Okinawa which never gets colder than 45 degrees in the winter and the idea of snow around here seems absurd. However, we also don’t have that kind of elevation here either. At any rate, the gorge itself was more impressive to me than the Grand Canyon. While not as big, the splendor of what we were seeing and how it was created was astonishing. More astonishing was the amount of effort it took to carve the roadway into the side of solid vertical cliffs to make this first West – East crossing on Taiwan in the early part of the last century. Much of it has been rebuilt multiple times due to damage from earthquake induced rock slides or Typhoon rain induced rock slides and high water. We want to go back and explore the miles of hiking this area has to offer.
Our final tour day took us out to the north coast again to visit the Yehliu GeoPark. While the park itself was beautiful (for obvious reasons), the throngs of tour bus induced Chinese tourists were not. This place reminded me of Yellowstone with the unbelievable mobs of people destroying what would otherwise be a very interesting place.
On our final day in Taipei, we tried to do some shopping for electronics as we had heard you can get good deals there since most everything in the world electronic is made there. Unfortunately, while we found the correct places to shop, we also found that the prices were higher than at home. Perhaps the current exchange rate is causing a problem in this regard. We did however discover that the subway was remarkably cheap and easy to use. This system was easier to use than anything I’ve seen in an English speaking country, let alone Asia. The trains in mainland Japan are very confusing and don’t always offer signage in English. In Taipei, everything was in English, color code by subway line, and amazingly clean. Even at rush hour, it wasn’t too bad to use. We had to stand and it was crowded, but we didn’t need to be ‘shoved’ into the train like they do in Tokyo.
We enjoyed our visit immensely and look forward to going back sometime with hiking as the main itinerary.
Posted in Travel | 2 Comments »
April 10th, 2011 Scott
Yesterday was our first day of five in Taiwan for our Spring Break. We arrived in the early afternoon and noticed a great deal of elevated freeway under construction during our fourth minute cab ride to our downtown hotel. The cab fare was $1250 which ends up being somewhere around $30 US. You have to divide by 30 to figure out costs of items here which can be challenging when you area in a hurry.
After checking in and a quick walk around the local shopping area, we settled in for a rest while we waited for our evening tour to start.
We left the hotel a little after six PM to go have dinner at a tourist dinner mill (we’ve been to a few of these in Asia and the food is never the best) and then went to Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world after the Dubai Tower. I was looking forward to taking some photos from the observation deck but it was closed (we did get to go to the level just below it that was inside) so the photo ops just weren’t there. Interestingly, the cityscape wasn’t nearly as lit as I thought it would be. The visit wasn’t in vain though because there was a great photography exhibit of the tower itself from several competitions and I found that to be more interesting than the view out the windows.
After the tower, we went to a Buddhist and Taoist temple just before it closed for the night. This was nice because it wasn’t quite so crowded as it otherwise would’ve been. After that, we walked to the adjacent night tourist market that a variety of unique and interesting products for sale, including restaurants that served various species of poisonous snakes.
I’ll post pictures and videos when I get back home on Thursday.
Read the rest of this entry »
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March 12th, 2011 Scott
Yesterday afternoon around 2:45 PM local time there was a massive 8.9 scale earthquake in Northern Japan. Shortly thereafter there were several tsunamis that caused massive destruction for the cities and villages along the coastline in the region. Here in Okinawa, we had a tsunami warning for approximately 5:20 PM. They evacuated a couple of the Marine Corps Bases in low lying areas and recommended people evacuate their homes if they lived near the shoreline.
Interestingly, I heard nothing about this at school and I was there until 5:00 PM. Gina had tried to call me at 4:00 PM to let me know and to recommend staying at school. I had ridden my bike to work and would have to traverse some low lying areas to get home. Our house is about 500 yards from the shoreline, but it is also up a hill and quite safe from all but the most enormous waves. After checking with the local weather/earthquake/tsunami warning center web site, I decided that a ride home would be okay. They were predicting the wave to be less than six feet tall when it got to Okinawa. As it turned out, it was only two feet tall. A wave that size would be barely noticeable; even on a calm day.
What was unique was hearing all the public address systems in each neighborhood I rode through announcing the tsunami to that area. I heard ominous sounding Japanese messages all the way home. Traffic and demeanor seemed quite normal though, which didn’t surprise me. I’ve seen 90 year old ladies still walk to the grocery store when a typhoon is about to hit the island and the wind and rain are lashing at the windows.
Today, they are still issuing “Sea Condition Red” which means we are not allowed in the water for any reason because aftershocks may trigger more tsunamis. I have friends living in Tokyo who’ve indicated that they have lost count of the aftershocks and it’s been about 22 hours since the initial earthquake. The devastation near the epicenter is quite severe and now they are having issues keeping two nuclear power plants from overheating. Let’s hope that they get it under control soon.
In the meantime, we are all safe and comfortable here in Okinawa. We’ll watch the news like everyone else and see how this turns out.
Posted in Okinawa | 1 Comment »
February 27th, 2011 Scott
Gina and I participated in something called a Joyathlon today. I don’t know if they have these in the states or not because I’ve never seen one before. Basically, it was a long walk through a really interesting part of Okinawa near the southern tip of the island. We walked on sidewalks and modern roads, but we also walked through the jungle on ancient stone roads that connected springs and castle ruins. We also went to several sacred sites along the way. At the end, we walked down to a beautiful white coral sand beach on a resort and had some soba for lunch. Overall, we walked 13 kilometers, climbed 1000 feet, and had a really great time. Us and our friends were the only Westerners in attendance. We wore race numbers just like in a fun run.
I took some video and lots of pictures as well. I’ll add those as soon as I get them downloaded so you can see all the wonderful places we saw today. If any of you ever come to visit, we now have som new spots on our ‘must show’ list for company.
Let me know if you’ve ever heard of an event like this; I’m curious to see if this is a local phenomenon or more universal.
Posted in Okinawan Culture, People, Travel | No Comments »
October 29th, 2010 Scott
Last weekend I participated in the longest triathlon I’ve done so far. The Izena 88 has a 2k swim, 66k bike, and a 20k run. The 88 refers to the total distance in kilometers, and since this year’s was the 23rd running, I’m guessing the first one was held in 1988, but that might be a coincidence.
These numbers are very similiar to a 70.3 Ironman triathlon, except that in the Izena 88 the swim is 100 meters longer, the bike is approximately 16 miles shorter, and the run is about 1 kilometer shorter. The course is two left turning laps around a 1000m open ocean swim that is well marked by tall poles and flags every 20 meters or so followed by 4.5 laps of a 14k bike loop around the outer perimeter of the island. The run is two lumpy 10k laps through the inner part of the island. This course is easily the most exciting and most interesting course I’ve ever raced on. It also was the most difficult.
The swim is located in a fairly well protected bay with a barrier island offshore. However, there is a channel dug out of the coral about 530 meters offshore and the tides rip through this channel parallet to the beach. They timed the swim start to be about 20 minutes before high tide to minimize the effects, but there was a significant current from the right as we swam out and it increased in power as we approached the channel. We turned left just before the channel and got a great free ride from the current for about 100 meters or so before turning left two more times to make a sort of triangle (with the top cut off) course back toward the beach. Sighting was challenging on the way out because you had to turn your body toward the right to keep in line with the bouys and there was nothing but open ocean to sight from when pointed correctly. I always ended up sighting down the bouy line and then would get pushed into it by the current. The swim back in was easer to sight since you always pointed your self toward the bouyline on your left where the current was coming from.
I had my best swim ever in this race for a couple of reasons. First, I ended up getting kicked, pulled, crawled over, and pushed from all directions. I typically try to avoid the crowded start as much as possible to avoid the associated anxiety the comes with being in the water while people are bumping into you. However, for whatever reason, this time it didn’t bother me. I felt totally comfortable and did my best to simply keep moving forward without injuring myself or other people. I didn’t get that normal sense of ‘open swim anxiety’ that sometimes happens when things don’t go exactly right.
I checked my watch coming out of the water on the first lap and it showed 17:30. For me, that is an epic fast 1000m split. I figure 2:00 per 100m when I’m racing. To come out of the water 2:30 ahead of that pace after one lap made me feel like I was on cloud nine. I was so happy with that split that I simply put myself on cruise control for the second lap and came out at 20:00 even. This put me 82nd out of 450 coming out of the water. The first place swimmer came in some 13 minutes ahead of me. I don’t know how swimmers can go that fast.
T1 was a looonnnngggg skinny section of two parallel bike racks with the exit at the opposite end from the beach. My rack was about 20 feet from the exit. This is the ideal rack location as it is always easy to run through transition without the bike as opposed to those who rack near the beach and have to navigate through all the people ditching their wetsuits and getting their helmets. The space was very limited so I’m glad I didn’t have to negotiate it with my bike in hand.
The bike course is a 14k lap that must be navigated 4 1/2 times to complete. It has a few rollers, some straight flats with smooth pavement, and a nice climb with some twisty descending. Overall, it was a very enjoyable and challenging course that didn’t have anything in it that was overwhelmingly difficult to do. The climbs were never steep enough to make me stand out of the saddle and the wind was too bad on the open flats. My goal was to save my legs as much as possible for the run so I had to focus diligently to not ride too hard. With my background in time trialing, I always have a tendency to ride to hard on the bike and I knew that would be disaster at this distance.
I had a really high heart rate coming out of T1 that took a few minutes to settle down, but eventually I dialed it into a rate of 150 bpm. My usually time trialing heart rate (or sprint distance triathlon) is 170 – 175 so this was a significant pullback of effort. In fact, I felt like I was on a Sunday afternoon stroll on the beach. I really felt like I wasn’t putting any effort at all into the bike compared to my normal race day efforts.
I ended up with a 20.2 mph avg and felt really good coming into T2. I had the 39th fastest bike split, but it looked to me like there no more than 10 – 15 bikes racked at T2 so I’m not sure how those numbers all add up. I know that I passed several people on the bike. I also saw the race leader go by me during my fourth lap as he was finishing his 5th. My split was 2:03 while his was 1:45. That puts him in rarified air. He won the event by over 20 minutes to the second place person.
The run course is two laps of 10k and each lap has four distinct climbs. The first (and biggest) one comes right out of T2 and grinds away for the first 2k. It isn’t steep, but it also isn’t much fun while finding your running legs. The course had aid stations set up approximately 1 per mile. This worked perfectly with my schedule of walking once every 9 minutes or so. It allowed me to walk and easily hydrate at the same time. They also managed have the aid stations located at or near the top of each climb. This also was quite nice.
My first 10k came in at 56:00 which is slow, but better than I thought it would be with all the climbing. I’ve been putting in good half-marathon traning for the last several months to prepare, but not any hill work and these hills were serious. Three of them were long, gradual grinders and the fourth hill had two incredibly steep sections to get through. Unfortunately, my second lap didn’t go as well. I started feeling my quads wanting to cramp up and the heat and humidity were taking their toll. I had been doing very well with hydration and nutrition all day. I had started by drinking water right up to the swim start (a year ago I was dehydrated at the start because of spending 45 minutes in the wet suit in warm conditions before without water to drink), and I had three bottles on the bike. Two of them had Sustained Energy mixed at 200 calories per bottle and the third was water. I drank all three on the bike during the two hour ride and my stomach felt great. Often times the drinks upset my stomach if I try to drink to much too quickly. On the run, I planned on doing 200 calories of Gu per hour and drinking water from the aid stations.
This is where things got difficult. I was drinking as much water as I could handle to keep up with the hydration, but then I would get uncomfortable running. I was constantly balancing hydration needs with trying to be able to run without sloshing water. I also didn’t maintain my schedule of Gu as I should have. The final 5k of the run was difficult in that I could tell I was either on the verge of bonking, or becoming overly dehydrated. My walk breaks lasted longer after each aid station and I utlized a great deal of ice water over the head to cool off. I was sweating so much that I simply couldn’t keep up with the hydration and also have my stomach empty enough to run comfortably. My average heart rate for the run was 159. The second lap took my 1:07, some 11 minutes slower than the first lap.
I finished with the 76th fastest run and came in 62nd overall at 4:45 and change. The heat on the run was miserable, but the race was awesome I can’t wait to do it again.
As fo the hydration issue, I figure that I drank at least a gallon of liquid during the race followed by at least that much more in the hours after the race. The race started at 7:30 AM and I peed about an hour before the start. The next time I had to pee wasn’t until the following morning some 24 hours later. I had been drinking as much water as I could drink all afternoon and evening and still was not hydrated enough to need to pee until the next day. And even then, the dark color of the urine indicated that I had a long way to go before being properly hydrated again.
A good friend of mine who is training for a full Ironman in December and has been putting in 5 – 8 hour weekend workouts on the bike and long runs used this race as part of his Ironman prep. He is an equal to me in ability on the bike and is a better runner than I am. He also can do both much longer than I can because of his endurance workouts he’s been doing the last several weeks. In short, this should been another day at the office for him. He ended up with a DNF when both his legs fully locked up due to dehydration cramping with about 6k to go in the run. The officials ended up giving a 500ml IV for fluids to get him back to something normal. He too was drinking as much fluid as he could fit in his stomach and clearly it still wasn’t enough.
It was an epic race in a variety of ways; longest course, most interesting course, hottest run, and challenging hills. I can’t wait to go back and do better next year.
Pics to follow when I get them in.
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September 5th, 2010 Scott
Recently, one of my former students at Cashmere High School posted a picture of the Jazz Band on Facebook from 2001 – 2002 (or so). That picture generated a lot of discussion from the members of the band and I reminded them that we recorded a couple of tracks at the end of the 2003 school year. I indicated I would post them online so everyone could listen to them. Here they are:
Abracadabra
Shiny Stockings
Personally, I’ve never cared for how Abracadabra turned out. Shiny Stockings is quite nice though. Right click and ‘save as’ to keep the file for yourself.
Enjoy!
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July 8th, 2010 Scott
Summer is here. We were lucky this year as we had a longer rainy season than we’ve had the last two years which created cooler temperatures until late June. Then we suddenly had 83 – 88 degree days with 90% relative humidity. Working out now outside is much slower and requires carrying a great deal of water to survive. Coming from spending my entire life in a summer environment where the night time temperatures drop into the low 60′s, I find opening our door at 5:30 AM to a blast of hot, humid air to be very peculiar. Actually though, 82 degrees now feels relatively cool compared to later in the day when the sun comes out.
The marine corps bases here have a system of calculating a head index that takes into account temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and sun light. From this data, they will post either no flag, a green flag, a yellow flag, a red flag, or a black flag. Most days this week have been black flag by 10:00 AM. That indicates that no physical fitness activities outside are to be undertaken. Even though the air temperature might be around 88, with the sun and humidity factored in, their system has registered a high of 120 for a couple of bases this week. Any number over 90 seems to generate the black flag. You can see what the current conditions are for yourself.
We have about a week left here before we leave for our summer travels. We will be heading to Washington for a couple of weeks, then going to Germany to visit a friend for a short week. After that, Gina travels to Los Angeles to visit with her sister while I go to Ireland for photography workshop. I’m looking forward to all of it.
I’ve settled on my athletic goals for the upcoming school year. I will enter the Izena 88 Triathlon, the Tour of Okinawa 85k Road Race, the Naha Marathon, and the Ishigaki Olympic Distance Triathlon. Izena is close to a 70.3 or half-ironman distance and will be my first long course race. The Tour of Okinawa is a challenging bicycle race that I’ll enter to support a good friend of mine who wants to do well in it. The 85k course is very hilly and consequently very challenging. I will do the Naha Marathon in hopes that I finish strong rather than weak as I did in the Okinawa Marathon early this Spring. And finally, the Ishigaki Triathlon is one I’ve wanted to do for three years but haven’t been able to due to scheduling with work obligations. This Olympic Distance race will be my #1 priority race for the season. がんばって！
Posted in Health and wellness, Travel, Triathlon | No Comments »
May 7th, 2010 Scott
We visited three cities in China last month; Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. In each city we had an English speaking guide meet us at the airport. With a driver and a car, our guide was well equipped to take us on our daily adventures before dropping us off at the airport again for our next stop. Because Gina and I travelled alone, we ended up with a lot of time in the car to discuss various topics with our guides. The following snippets of information come straight from what they told us. It’s up to you to decide for yourself whether you think the information is accurate, exaggerated, or government dictated. I suspect that a little of all three possibilities exist.
One US Dollar equals about 6 Chinese Yuan. This conversion made it challenging to calculate the value of things. We eventually figured out to divide everything in half, then again in thirds to get a rough estimate of US value. All three of our guides told us they average monthly income is 2000 yuan. However, a very small ordinary apartment costs about 1.5 million yuan to purchase in Beijing or Shanghai. That would be the equivalent of an American earning $333 a month trying to find an apartment for $250,000. We saw thousands upon thousands of apartments and easily 50% of the cars on the street were expensive European models (BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, etc). These cars cost about double the cost we would bear. Apparently they have high import tariffs or luxury taxes. Time and time again George would quote prices that were about double what my estimates would be ($50,000 – $150,000 per car). Neither Emily or George (our Beijing guide) could afford to live in their respective cities. Each of them had a 60 – 90 minute train commute each day to get to our hotel. Based on how they dressed and the nature of their jobs (likely a pretty good job and they got good tips) I’d say they were upper middle class.
So who lives in all those apartments? If you have to be rich to afford a 500 square foot studio, where do people who earn less than 2000 yuan a month live? If that’s the average, there must be a lot of street people…but I didn’t see more than a couple of obviously homeless people the whole time. I did see A LOT of people and I was also in places where homeless people might congregate, but just didn’t see them. I did see baggage x ray machines at the subway stations and Tianamen Square. I also saw police and army personnel in most public places. We had to go through security checkpoint to get back into the city of Shanghai after a drive in the country.
All three guides were very quick to always point out or explain why China is the greatest country on earth or why China is quickly becoming a very important country on the worldwide scene. This felt a little like government sponsored patriotism to me since it all seemed very similar from all three of them. Emily explained that she had to go through a one year training program to become a guide. At the end of the year, she had to pass a test that she estimated only 10% of the students who took the course passed. Of those students who passed, she estimated that only 10% actually got jobs as tour guides. Seems extreme, but in a place where there are 1 billion people, the job market is likely fairly competitive. Still, that means that Emily is 1 of a 100 who wanted her job.
Because of the ‘one child’ policy and the cultural preference for boys, there is an imbalance in the population. There are more men than women. In the cities, a man can not hope to get married unless he owns his own apartment. Review my figures above to see why this is especially difficult and why many men still live with family (and consequently have a failure to launch). Married couples who are each ‘one child’ themselves from the policy are now allowed to have two children and couples in rural areas under certain circumstances can have two children (but only if you were born in a rural area…so you can’t move from the city to get a bigger family). It was fairly interesting to realize that we never saw a family bigger than three in a place where we saw more people in one place than anywhere else we’d been.
A foreign teacher recruited to come teach English at a private school might make 5000 yuan a month. Still not much money.
Facebook is blocked in China. Needless to say, I also refrained from checking my DoD email account while there.
All three guides had somewhat disparaging remarks about Japanese people. Basically, they felt that everything Japan has ever done was something that China did first, and did better. These sorts of comments where made about architecture, food, written language, etc. I don’t think they even realized how it sounded….it was just a matter of fact to them:
“Well you know that the Japanese writing system is actually Chinese, right? Well, almost. They could only learn about 3,000 characters”
“Actually the Japanese learned how to make pagodas from us.”
All of it likely true, but it struck me as most likely that they don’t think to highly of Japanese folks.
George explained to us that Tibet has no right, privilege, or need to be freed. It is part of China and China has done a great deal to improve Tibet. End of discussion.
George was baffled as to why American electronics companies will not market their products to him. He likes American products and would buy lots of them if they would just sell them in China. I explained to him that in the news that week I had read a story about how most American companies can’t wait to sell to the world’s biggest market but the Chinese government won’t let it happen. He laughed at me because he found this story to be absurd. It would be impossible for that to be the problem. He was insistent that it was because our companies don’t want to do business in China. It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose. I know Apple wants to sell stuff to him (and they are starting to). Perhaps George is more interested in F-22′s. I could see why Lockheed-Martin might have a problem with selling him military grade equipment.
Chinese people have no socialized health care system. If you have a good job, you can get insurance. However, a great many of China’s people are self employed farmers. If they get seriously ill, there is no recourse for them and they are refused service. Can you imagine not even having the ability to go to an emergency room to get treatment? People argue about health care in the states, but the bottom line is that you can get care if you need it. Ultimately, the hospital may have to ‘write off’ the costs if a patient can’t pay but that cost is transferred to higher bills for the rest of us which means higher insurance premiums (hey…we were all already paying for poor people’s health care…now it’s being handled by the government instead Blue Cross). In China they have none of these issues. If you have no money or insurance, you receive no care.
Bottom line is that China is a powerful old country that is doing very well in modern times. They have different priorities than we do, but they have a different culture than we do. It was most certainly a modern, first world economy that I saw. Unlike Cambodia and Vietnam where you could clearly see that they still live in an old (third) world economy, China looks and feels like a force to behold. Obviously there are freedoms we take for granted that simply aren’t possible in a Communist country, but our guides felt like many of our ‘freedoms’ were simply to dangerous to be allowed and they felt confident and safe with how their government dictated their lives. Our government dictates much of our lives as well, it’s just delivered in a package we are all familiar with seeing. I’m not advocating that their system is inherently good or bad (or evil), I’m just trying to point out that perspective makes a huge impact on perception. George found it insane that I could own a gun. I find it insane that he can’t freely browse the Internet.
George is either happy in his Communist country or he’s been taught to be happy. I’m either happy in my Democratic country or I’ve been taught to be happy. Either way, we’re both happy.
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