2011 Year in Review

2011 will surely be remembered as the year I became terribly addicted to triathlons, duathlons, and road racing. I don't even want to start adding up how much I spent on race entries, equipment (a new bike, race wheels, ...), the gym, etc. However, I could afford it, it's gotten me into the best shape of my life, and it's been quite rewarding meeting and exceeding goals.
Besides racing, the figurative and literal "high point" of my year was being able to visit so many state highpoints. Almost every trip out of state involved at least one new highpoint. The most extreme, Wyoming's, was four days of trekking through the snow and was far more physically and mentally tough than any race I did. However, I wouldn't have been able to do it in the manner I did if I weren't in as good of shape as I've become as a result of training and racing.

Decker Challenge Half Marathon

This morning I raced the Decker Challenge Half Marathon, the third event in the Austin Distance Challenge (the first two being the IBM 10K and the Run for the Water), and while I didn't manage as quick of a pace as either of those races, I'm quite pleased with my 1:50:30, which smashes my previous half-marathon PR from 3M in January. It also significantly improves on the last time I did 13.1 miles on foot in that part of town (The Longhorn Half Iron). I didn't have much of a game plan going into this race, knowing it was going to be hilly, but not having done this race before (this course was not the same as the Longhorn run course, but included some of the bike course). My plan was pretty much to run an 8-minute pace in the flats, a little slower uphill, and a little faster downhill. There weren't many flats, and it seems the downhills didn't even out the uphills, as my average pace was 8:24 (by my watch). Also not helping my time was some pretty bad foot pain- my left ankle was hurting for the past two weeks, and my right foot developed a nasty blister. However, I was well within, and nearly exceeded my goal time of 1:50-2:00.

Thanksgiving / Connecticut Highpoint

After the Natural Bridge Caverns Du on Sunday 11/28, I flew to New York on Monday for a fairly brief, relatively traditional Thanksgiving with my parents, sister, and niece. I don't think I mentioned it in my post, but the eighth of my recent highpoints, Alabama, is 35th in rank of highpoints by height ASL, and happened to also be my 35th completed highpoint. This was unintentional, but when I realized that Connecticut is ranked 36th in height, I was more than a little bit interested in going there on this trip. It wound up being about the most exercise I got during a week of gluttony.

Southeast Highpoint Adventure

On Sunday, October 30, mere hours after racing in the Run for the Water road race, I got onto my Fat Boy and rode 3,100 miles in seven days. On this cold, crazy, trip I visited eight state highpoints and three capitols. This brings my totals to 35 and 25, respectively. Other than a relatively minor issue with the bike, some rain outside of Atlanta, and trying to keep warm when it was in the 40s, it was a fairly uneventful ride. I did run into a slight problem off the bike, but the only real harm done was a loss of time.

Natural Bridge Caverns Duathlon 2011

For my fifth race in as many weeks, today I raced in the Natural Bridge Caverns Duathlon, repeating the second multi-sport event I did last year. As with the Lost Pines Tri, I improved significantly in the interim. Partly because I wanted a fair comparison to last year, and partly because I thought the best racers would do the slightly longer "T-Rex" distance, I again did the "Woolly Mammoth," which is approximately Olympic distance at roughly 5k/26mi/5k. According to my GPS, however, the distances were more like 3m/27m/2.6m. It seems the run turnaround was a little closer in than last year, and the bike course included Krueger Canyon. Those differences aside, I was pleased to improve from 2:31 to 2:08:46, and to seventh overall, and another age group win (my first being at Lost Pines).