Shiner GASP / The Rookie Triathlon

In what now seems almost "normal" to me, or at least not surprising to anybody, I did a 100-mile bicycle ride on Saturday, and a super-sprint triathlon on Sunday. I had done the Austin-to-Shiner ride twice before, but last year (which I didn't do) they changed the route a little to make sure it was a little over 100 as opposed to being slightly under 100 with the previous route. I hadn't bothered to look at the route map, so I was unaware of this; if I had realized I would have stopped at the last aid station and not pulled into the brewery desperately thirsty. Even after lots and lots of water that afternoon and evening, I was probably still a little dehydrated Sunday morning. While I felt like I did reasonably well at the Rookie Tri, I was a minute slower than last year. Plus my sweat seemed particularly salty.

Ironman 70.3 Texas Race Report

On Sunday, April 6th, I finished my sixth half-distance triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) at Ironman 70.3 Texas in Galveston. Thanks largely to favorable winds on the bike and my stomach holding together, I improved my personal record for the distance (previously held by my last triathlon in Kerrville last September) by nearly 12 minutes. I had PR bike and run splits, and finished in a time of 5:33:38. The weather was both challenging and beneficial: The wind made the swim very difficult, but somehow gave more on the ride out than it took away on the ride back; the threatened rain fell pretty much only on the far end of the island; the air temperature was warm enough, but not too hot, helped by the cloud cover. I finished 140th out of 297 in my age group, leading to my new tagline ("I'm a very average athlete, and I have the data to prove it"), which I mean as an encouragement to others, ie you don't have to be extraordinary to do the kinds of things I do.

Fight For Air Austin

Today's Fight For Air climb in Austin (benefitting the American Lung Association) marks the start of three years as a stair racer, and one year as a member of the West Coast Labels/X-Gym national stair racing team. It's been fun, even if it is a ridiculous sport, and I have no intention of stopping now. I really enjoy getting to see my "step siblings" at these races, since none of them live in Austin to run into the rest of the time. While my result at today's race is not what I had hoped, considering I've had a cold most of the week, it was better than I thought it might be. I was nearly a minute slower than last year in the "extreme" double climb, and my third single climb (later after some recovery time) was nothing spectacular. None of my climbs were under 4 minutes, but at least none of them were over 5. I wound up finishing fourth in the extreme, 10th in the single. I would have been second in the extreme if I had matched last year's time. Oh well. I'll come back next year.

LBJ 100 / Enchanted Rock Duathlon

On March 30, I did the Enchanted Rock "Extreme" Duathlon for my second and, unfortunately, probably last time (the race director said he won't be able to do this race again in the foreseeable future). Also unfortunate is that my time this year was two minutes slower than last year. If there's any one cause for the slowdown, it was probably that I biked 100 kilometers the day before in the LBJ 100 ride. It was a really nice ride, the weather the whole weekend was beautiful, my legs weren't trashed, but they did feel less than completely fresh for the 5-mile trail run, 16-mile road bike, 1.1-mile run duathlon, ending at the top of a big bald pink granite knob.

Scale the Strat

Sunday I participated in my first "Scale the Strat" stair race, 1455 stairs up one leg of the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. The finish is called the 108th floor, but it is not nearly as high as the 103rd floor of the Willis (Sears) Tower since it is not an occupied building for most of its height (the Stratosphere is a roughly 850 foot climb to Willis's roughly 1350). While this was not the tallest stair race I've done, it was very unique and quite challenging. I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with my 10:48 time, at least it gives me a mark for next time. This race was also the US Stair Racing Championship. I may have finished last in that (I'm not entirely sure, I was 29th American male overall), but it was an honor to have qualified for it by finishing in the top 50 in the US for 2013.