SWim bIKe rUN

Results

This year I was on the edge about whether or not to sign up for the 2011 Boise Ironman 70.3.  I ended up not signing up after the brutal beating I took from the wind last year.  Big mistake.

The weather was perfect for the race this year.  Very little wind, mild temperatures, however, the swim was cold.  Estimated water temperature was 62 degrees.  I’d be surprised if it made it over 55.  This didn’t seem to bother the racers too much as they posted some great times.  I was there to watch our Boise locals most of whom where our very own BFRs.

BFRs and Friends of BFRs

• Ryan Lund
• Trina Lund
• Ryan Vestal
• Andrew Parish
• Eric Rawlings
• Amber Kirtley-Perez
• Tegan Brown

Boise’s own Trish Deim finished 2nd in her division with a time of 4:47:58.

Women’s top finishers

1. Maqali Tisseyre     4:18:28
2. Heather Wurtele    4:20:41
3. Rachel McBride      4:22:14
4. Heather Jackson    4:26:06
5. Michelle Wu           4:26:54

Men’s top finishers

1. Ben Hoffman                    3:52:41
2. Nicholas Thompson        3:54:48
3. Jeff Symonds                    3:55:26
4. Paul Ambrose                  3:57:50
5. Jesse Thomas                  3:59:06

Got a headache midway through our ride in the Boise Foothills last night.  I still have it.  This is how I feel today, not really much to say.

This is it, this is the next race that I am signed up so far unless I attempt the Boise Half Ironman or the Boise Spudman Triathlon.

  My friends Morten and Jette, my wife and I are running the first half of The San Francisco Marathon.  This will be the first at this distance for my friends who have been training for about 4 or 5 months now and doing very well.  They’ll be using the run walk run method during the race. 

I used the run walk during my full marathon but I’m still not sure if I’ll use it for the half or run it straight through.  I ran The Ogden Half Marathon in 2010 straight through and finished in 1hr and 38mins.  I won’t be able to hit that pace with a run walk.  I ran Ogden last week doing the run walk in 3:44.  My best marathon, again using the run walk, is 3:41.  I did this at Logan during The Top of Utah Marathon.  For marathon distances I run for 4 minutes and walk for 1 minute and do this right from the start.  Start too late and your not going to get the benefits of the run walk.  The theory is to let your legs recover more often allowing your run to be at a faster pace throughout the entire race.  You can read more about it from the founder of this method, Jeff Galloway.

The training I’ve been doing for these races consists of a 4 mile interval run on Tuesdays, 4 mile tempo run on Thursdays and a long run on Saturday mornings.  Since I just ran the marathon and don’t have any races over 13.1 miles coming up in the near future my long runs will be around 12 to 14 miles.  Morten has been increasing his mileage by one mile on his long runs every other week.  This has been working out great for him and he finished 12 miles this weekend at an overall pace of 8:15 using the run walk. 

The San Francisco Marathon has two half marathons.  You can sign up to run the first half of the marathon or the back half.  We chose the first half because Morten and Jette did.  They chose the first half because you get to cross The Golden Gate Bridge twice, over and back.  If you want to do the first half you’d better sign up fast.  We all received an alert yesterday saying the front half it almost full.

 First Entry           Race Results          Photos            Course Map

Swikun Facebook

These are just few of my pics from the Ogden Marathon start.  Just waiting in a cow pasture until around the fires near the porta potties for the race to start.  Every year before this one has been freezing.  This year  was still a little chilly unless you were dressed for it.  We were all dressed for it. 

It had been raining for a couple of days before the race.  It was nice this morning but the ground was still really wet.  So, we all put on our designer booties.

You do Ogden enough times you remember two things.  Dress warm while you wait and bring something to sit on.

This is just a sample of the scenery that you’ll see during the Ogden Marathon.

Just taking in all of the marathon experience.                   Pedicure shot.

I’m not sure if these two are running or if the 3,000 of us just stumbled upon their campsite.

Our “Say Queso!” shots.  You can see the hills in the background that are the backdrop view for most of the race.  You can also see either a lot of the runners taking bong hits or standing around camp fires.  I’ll let you decide for your viewing pleasure.

Results

Photos

Course Map

This year’s Ogden Marathon was like all the others that I have run.  Great race, great support and great friends.  I saw some people complaining on facebook about the Expo but I thought for having to bring a bunch of it indoors at the last minute that it went pretty well.  Many people just like to cry and whine a lot.  After I read some of the comments on the Ogden Marathon facebook page I felt a lot better about the way my 4 and 1.5 year old behave.

I ended up with a 3:44:04.  I was really hoping that I could beat my PR, 3:41, but when the race started I was pretty sure that I didn’t have the legs for it.  Considering how that felt I am very pleased with my finish time.

I’ll post some of the pics from the start when I get them downloaded.

2010 half

The first ride started out pretty tough for me.  Shane, Dan and Syd are just a yappin away as we are going up the beginning of the trail and I can’t breathe.  Once I got to Kestral Hill I was slow but at least my body adapted and I could breathe again.

We headed over to Hulls Gulch, up Trail 1 and down Bob’s trail.  Bob’s is one of our favorites.  Plenty of rocks and opportunity for endows and injury.  I’m proud to say I only flew over the handle bars once on this, the first ride of the season for me.  Sad thing is I clean the difficult section of rocks and then endow on an easy part.  Leave it to Pablo.

Spring time is a great time to run or ride in the Boise Foothills.  They are streaming with runners and bikers.  Looks like a giant ant hill.  Everyone was really polite to each other when passing in opposite directions.  Take driving on the roads, this is exactly the opposite, anti road rage.

If you are new to the Boise Foothills or maybe from out of town, here is an interactive map of the trails.  Here you can also find trail etiquette, rules about which trails dogs are allowed on and motorized and non-motorized trails.

Boise Foothills Maps

Next weekend, Ogden Marathon.

Here is a photo from my first mountain bike ride this year.  OK, it’s a pic from last year but I noticed I’m wearing the exact same shtuff and have the same bike.  I’ll let you know how it goes.   I have the Ogden Marathon next weekend so I’m just hoping I don’t hurt myself.  The odds are stacked against me with the way I ride.

The Boise Foothills have been pretty wet this season so I’m really looking forward to getting on some single track. 

This weekend I’m going to see if the nephew wants to go on a short 10 mile easy going run with me.  He just got back from Afghanistan, Army, and we’re having his homecoming party for him in East Idaho this weekend.  Thanks Jonny, we appreciate what you do.

Many of us starting out with one of the Garmin GPS watches don’t realize just how powerful and how many tools there are these watches.  I recently talked to someone that hated having to figure out when to run and walk during interval training and run walk distance runs.  This person had a Garmin 305.  I currently own the Garmin 305, Garmin 310xt and my wife has the Garmin 405.  Hopefully this will help you out when trying to set up your interval training runs.

Garmin 305

• Press the mode button until you come to the main menu.  History, Training, Navigation and Settings will be your options.
• Highlight Training and press Enter
• Highlight Workouts and press Enter
• Highlight Interval and press Enter

This is where you will get a list of interval types that you can choose from.  I set my watch up for Time / Rest Time.  On my runs over 14 miles I do the Run Walk Run method.  I set my Time running at 4 minutes and my walking time for 1 minute.  Here are the steps to set up this mode.  One you have reached this point the set up is the same for all of the options.

• Highlight Time/Rest Time and press Enter
• Highlight Time and select on of the preset options or Custom if you would like an interval that is not listed.  I use custom to select 4 minutes.
• Once you are done repeat the same steps for setting up your Rest Time.
• Set the number of intervals you plan on running.  For my long runs I set this at 99 just to make sure the watch doesn’t finish the workout before I do. 

Turn the volume up so that you can hear the beep and you are set.  It will beep when you after each interval.

Garmin 310xt

• Press the mode button until you come to the main menu.  History, Training, Navigation and Settings will be your options.
• Highlight Training and press Enter
• Highlight Workouts and press Enter
• Highlight Interval and press Enter
• Highlight the Type field
• Highlight the Type of run interval you want, Time or Distance and press Enter
• Highlight the Time field and select on of the preset options or highlight Custom if you would like an interval that is not listed.  I use custom to select 4 minutes.
• Highlight the Rest Type field
• Highlight the Type of walk or rest interval you want, Time or Distance and press Enter
• Highlight Rest Time and select on of the preset options or Custom if you would like an interval that is not listed.  I use 1 minutes.
• Set the number of intervals you plan on running.  Again, for my long runs I set this at 99 just to make sure the watch doesn’t finish the workout before I do. 

So far I’ve logged 78 miles in my Hokas and I’m still impressed by them.  I went for a 20 mile run Saturday and was on my feet the rest of the day after that for my son’s 4th birthday party.  I’ve had little to no knee pain after my runs since buying this shoe. 

My wife has mentioned after both of my long runs that I seemed to have more energy after these two runs than I usually do after 20+ milers.  I’ve mentioned before that they tend to give you a little sticker shock at $170, however, if they can give me a few more good years of running they’ll be worth it to me.

The Ogden Marathon is in 2 weeks.  My previous best is a 3:41.  As usual my goals are in this order.

• Finish the race
• Finish below the 4 hour mark
• Run a PR which, for this run, my goal is 3:40

After the marathon we’ll be getting back into the Boise Foothills.  I plan on getting me a pair of the Hoka Mafates.  I went down to Bandana Running in Boise last week and held both the Bondi B and the Mafate.  The tread on the Matate seems to be more durable and the shoe seems a little heavier.  I’ll need the more durable tread for the foothills considering the Bondi Bs tread is very soft and wears pretty quickly.  I don’t see this as a big issue for the Bondi B considering you have over an inch of sole and don’t really need a lot of tread on the roads.

Today I accidentally locked the keys on my Garmin 310xt.  Since I didn’t know how to unlock them I thought there may be others out there with the same problem.

It’s a very simple function.  Press the Mode and Arrow Up button at the same time.