Long Weekend in Amsterdam…But No Marathon

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October 30th, 2009

Marathon Training & Injury

One of my goals for the year was to finish a big race like a marathon or half Ironman triathlon.  I figured that running would be easiest with all of my traveling this year, so I decided to train for a marathon.  After running for a couple months to get a decent base, my sister-in-law Nina, who is a running coach, made a great training plan for me.  Then I fully committed and registered for the Amsterdam Marathon in October (which was about 6 months away).

My training went well for the first 5 months, and I made a lot of progress.  I was to the point where an hour long run felt like an easy day.  Before this, the longest I had ever run was 13.1 miles in the San Francisco half marathon in 2007.  But I got to the point in my training where I was basically running a half marathon or more every week!  For me that was quite an accomplishment unto itself.

Unfortunately, though, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.  In the middle of September, about one month before the race, I went out for a long run in Zürich.  It was to be my longest run yet at 3 hours (about 3/4 of a marathon).  The run started out fine but just as I got to the farthest point away from home (it was an out-and-back run), the arch of my right foot started hurting.  I could tell that something was wrong, but I had no way to get back home other than to run/walk it.  So I hobbled along all the way back, most likely exacerbating the injury along the way, until I got to an area I knew and could get on the bus home.  And that was the end my running career, for now anyways.

My own diagnosis is a stress fracture, but I haven’t actually gone to a doctor to confirm this.  For now I have stopped running and am trying to keep off of it as much as possible so that it can heal.  I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I know that it had nothing to do with the training plan.  I had been adding distance very gradually and had had no problems up until that day.  I suspect that it was most likely due to not replacing my running shoes quickly enough, but my orthotics and/or bad running form might also be to blame (or maybe something else completely, who knows?).

On the bright side, we already had the trip to Amsterdam booked so now I could just go and enjoy myself.  Plus, Emily had signed up for the Amsterdam half marathon, so now I could be her cheerleader/photographer.

Amsterdam

Emily and I went to Amsterdam two weeks ago, from October 16th to 19th.  It was my first time ever in Amsterdam or in the Netherlands; Emily had already been there once before earlier this year with our friend Ben Shapiro.  The city is definitely very unique with canals literally everywhere.  I was surprised by how the canals were so integrated into the city and by just how many there were.   The other thing that is impossible not to notice in Amsterdam is all the bikes.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to a city where biking was embraced so heavily.  While there were marked bike lanes almost everywhere, I was still a bit surprised that there wasn’t a better biking infrastructure.  I’m not really sure what I expected, but I just found it strange that the bike lanes were often blocked by tourists and weren’t more isolated from the cars and pedestrians.

Over the weekend, we were lucky enough to stay at a friend’s apartment rather than a hotel.  We stayed with Luke Miller, who is one of Emily’s friends from work whom I had met earlier in the year in Paris, and his sister Tegan.  They were very generous to let us stay with them, so thanks again Luke and Tegan!  Oh, and they have the craziest shower I’ve ever seen in my life, complete with lights, radio, steam, and more.

Sunday was the day of Emily’s race.  The marathon started in the morning, but the half marathon didn’t start until 2 pm.  The race started and finished at the Olympic Stadium, which was walking distance from Luke’s apartment.  I watched Emily start then walked around the city and got some lunch while she was running.  Most of the public transport was closed down because of the marathon so it was a bit difficult to get around, and I actually didn’t get back to the stadium in time to see Emily finish.  I thought I had made it in time, but she ran faster than she had expected!  Her final time was an impressive 2:01:54.  Way to go, Emo!

Our flight didn’t leave until late Monday evening, so Emily and I had all day to hang out and explore the city.  We spent most of the afternoon at the Van Gogh Museum, which we both enjoyed a lot.  Other than that we just walked around and then headed to the airport for our flight that evening.

So even though I didn’t get to run the marathon, it was still a good weekend.  Emily had a great race and we had a good time.  Thanks again Luke and Tegan!

More Amsterdam pictures on Flickr

Chautauqua Old First Night Run

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August 8th, 2009

Last Saturday I ran in the annual Chautauqua Old First Night Run.  It is a 2.7 mile run around the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution.  (My family has an cottage here that I’ve been coming to in the summer for my whole life).  I ran in this race a few times when I was growing up, but the last time was probably at least 7 years ago.

My goal for this race was 20 minutes and I got it almost exactly.  I finished in 20:06 and placed 18th in my age group, 20-29.  (If there had been a 25-29 year old age group, I would have been first!)  Full results are in the Chautauqua Daily from August 5th on page 11.

A Last Minute 7k

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October 8th, 2008

After finishing my two triathlons, I had planned on taking a break for awhile….but that didn’t last very long.  At the last minute, I decided to run in the Bridge to Bridge 7k again this year.  The race was on Sunday morning and I registered for the race that morning.  The race starts at the Ferry Building and goes along the Embarcadero through Fisherman’s Wharf, Aquatic Park, Fort Mason, the marina, and Crissy Field then finishes in the Presidio.  It is a really fun race, probably one of my favorite runs.

Results.  I beat my time from last year by over 4 minutes!  My pace was 7:35/mile, which is probably the fastest I’ve run since high school. See the Full Results

2 Triathlons in 2 Weeks

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October 3rd, 2008

I competed in triathlons the past two Sundays.  First was the Sentinel Triathlon – an Olympic distance tri in Santa Cruz, CA on September 21st.  Then I did the Granite Bay Sprint Triathlon with Basile last weekend.  Both races went well and now I am looking forward to taking a break and getting some rest.

Sentinel Triathlon

The Course.  1.5km Swim, 40km Bike, 10km Run.  The swim is in the ocean and goes around the Santa Cruz municipal wharf. When you get out of the water, you run up a short hill and across the street to the bike transition area.  The bike route is basically just an out-and-back on Highway 1.  Unfortunately, the road is not closed to traffic, but they do a good job of regulating the traffic and keeping it safe for the bikers.  Finally, the run is an out-and-back along the coast.  There are beautiful views of the cliffs and the ocean the whole way.  Overall, the course was surprisingly flat and very scenic.  I would definitely recommend it.  The only downsides were that the bike course is not closed (i.e. on Highway 1, you have to share the road with cars), which is not ideal for a race, and one part of the bike is ridiculously bumpy (although they said this would be re-paved by next year).

The Race. For some reason, they decided to have the Clydesdales start last (yes, despite having lost over 20 lbs this year, I am still in the heavyweight/fat-ass division).  So this meant that I got to spend most of the race passing people, which is pretty fun.  Ok, to be honest, I passed a ton of people on the bike but I was usually the one getting passed on the run.  But back to the beginning – the swim.  It was pretty cold at the start and I was wearing my full wetsuit (although there were a few people going without).  At the end of the wharf, there were a bunch of sea lions that were barking at us as we went by.  I also saw a seal swimming about 10 feet in front of me as I came around the pier.  The bike was my best event as usual; I ended up averaging almost 22mph.  The run was a little tough, but I was surprised to find out that I had made it in about 8 minute miles.

Results.  I was pretty shocked by my time; I did way better than I had expected.  I beat my time from the Wildflower tri by 20 minutes!!  Of course, this course was much flatter and therefore I think the times in general were much faster for this one. Full Results (Use ‘Find Athlete’ – Bib #119)

Granite Bay Triathlon

The Course.  .75mi Swim, 13mi Bike, 5mi Run.  Same course as last year, although this year the water level had dropped even further so the run from the water to the bike transition area was 3/4 mile up the beach.

The Race.  For the swim I used a wetsuit this year.  The water was warm and it was hot out, but I still wanted to wear it for the buoyancy.  After getting out of the water, I briefly tried running in flip-flops before deciding to just run up the beach barefoot instead (.75 mi!).  The bike went well, although I was a bit surprised that my time was so similar to last year’s…maybe partially due to the longer run up the beach.  The last leg was the run.  This is where the race suddenly got very, very difficult.  The main problem was the heat – it was about 90 degrees by the time I started the run.  The run course seemed to go on forever and seemed to have more hills than I remembered from last year.  After walking up a few of the hills, I finally made it to the finish line.

Results. I ended up beating my time from last year by 4 minutes.  I know I can do better, but given the circumstances, I was happy with it.  Overall Results :: Division Results

Tim’s Tour de Tahoe

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August 3rd, 2008

Yesterday, I rode my bike around Lake Tahoe – a solo “Tour de Tahoe”.  The ride was 75 miles long and took me just under 5 hours (4:52) not including rest stops.  It was a beautiful ride with lots of hills – I think I broke 40mph at least 5 times on the downhills.  I started (and ended) in Incline Village, NV, and took the clockwise, inner-loop around the lake. The west side was flatter and more biker friendly in that it had bike trails most of the way. The hardest part was the last mile back up to Adam’s house, which was the steepest uphill climb of the whole ride. I was very close to walking my bike on that one, but I somehow managed to push through it and finish off the complete ride.

This has been a very active week.  On Tuesday, I rode my bike up Mt. Rose, which is the highest year-round Sierra pass. It is a 7.5 mile climb that goes from about 6300 ft of elevation to 8900 ft of elevation. The climb took me about 50 minutes on the way up and just 12 minutes on the way down.

Also, on Wednesday, I went on a 7 hour, ~13 mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail in the Desolation Wilderness in South Lake Tahoe.  I went with Rachel (Adam’s sister), Tory (Adam’s girlfriend), and Nell (Tory’s cousin).  It was one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever been on in my life.  We went through a lot of different terrains and saw a lot of picturesque alpine lakes.  We started out by taking a one-way water taxi across Echo Lake.  Then we hiked past Lake Aloha, Heather Lake, Susie Lake, Gilmore Lake (where Rachel and I jumped in), and finished at Fallen Leaf Lake.  I highly recommend this hike if you are in the area.

More pictures from the hike and from the bike rides on Flickr.

Alcatraz Swim

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July 29th, 2008

This past Saturday I finished my first-ever Alcatraz swim – the Alcatraz Swim with the Centurions. The swim starts by jumping off a ferry right next to the island of Alcatraz in the San Francisco bay and finishes in Aquatic Park. To me it was more of a fun experience than a race. I took my time and enjoyed the swim rather than trying to get my fastest time possible. It was pretty incredible to be swimming in the middle of the bay – after looking into the cold, dark, murky water of the bay, I would turn my head to take a breathe and catch a glimpse of the island of Alcatraz; then on the next breath I would see the Golden Gate Bridge; then the San Francisco skyline. Very cool. And luckily, the sharks didn’t find me so I came out in one piece. And when we got out, they were serving up free clam chowder for all the swimmers, which was pretty unique.

Results

I finished in about 45 minutes (by my watch), and ended up finishing 56th overall in the open wetsuit division (36th in the men’s open wetsuit division). Not bad! Here are the official results.

I put a few pictures up on Flickr and here are a few of me from the “official” photographer:

• Tim Jumping In 1
• Tim Jumping In 2
• Tim Jumping In 3
• Tim Finishing

100 Pushups

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July 5th, 2008

I stumbled upon an interesting website the other day during my daily internet surfing – hundredpushups.com. It is a 6-week training program to do 100 consecutive pushups. I decided to take the challenge. I just finished my first week of the program. I like the simplicity of it; it is only one exercise and it can be done from anywhere (even at home). In my initial test, I maxed out at just 41 pushups, so in 5 weeks we’ll see if the program really works.

Wildflower Triathlon

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May 6th, 2008

This past Sunday, May 4, I finished my first ever Olympic distance triathlon. Well, not just finish but did better than I ever expected. I was very happy with my time and proud of the accomplishment. I was surprised to learn yesterday, that I am now the first in the Church family to complete an Olympic tri. My brother has done just about every other athletic event imaginable, but apparently as far as triathlons he has only done sprints.

I did the Wildflower Triathlon, which is known as the “Woodstock of triathlons” because everyone camps out all weekend at the event. It is located on Lake San Antonio about 4 hours south of San Fran. We drove down Friday after work and camped out both Friday and Saturday nights. During the day on Saturday, we watched/cheered on the triathletes doing the Long Course and walked around the festival expo area. It was nice to be able to get a feel for the course before doing it myself, but Saturday was a very long day for me. It was hard to sit around waiting when I just wanted to get my race over with.

On Sunday morning I was ready to go. I wasn’t very nervous; I felt well prepared and well rested. Luckily, I was in one of the first heats, so I started at 9:15 am. The swim was 1.5 km (~.9 miles) in Lake San Antonio. It was frustrating because there were so many people swimming on top of each other that I had to keep my head out of the water for the first 1/4 mile of the swim, which is more tiring than just being able to swim normally. But after we got around the first buoy, people started to separate out. As I finished the swim, I felt like I was around the middle of the pack for my heat. The 40km (~25 mile) bike route starts out with a long climb up Lynch Hill. I felt good coming out of the transition and started passing people on the way up the first hill, but after about halfway up, I realized how long the climb actually was and I had to slow down a bit to make sure I didn’t use up all of my energy too soon. The rest of the ride was an out-and-back that went over another 3 big hills. Going down the back of one of the hills, I got up to 40 mph — a new record for me. The ride felt pretty good and I definitely passed more people than passed me. The last leg was the 10km (6.2 mile) run. I hadn’t realized how brutal the run was going to be. The first 8 km are almost all uphill, and then the last 2 km are a steep downhill into the finish line. My legs started cramping up on the run and I had to stop and walk to stretch them out for awhile around the 7km mark. But I was able to keep going and finally make it to the top of that never-ending hill. As I came down the finish chute, another guy was trying to pass me and the two of us ended up in an all out sprint across the finish line. I think he beat me out in the end, but I was just happy to be done with the run and to have finished the race!

My goal for the triathlon was 3 hours: 35 minutes swim, 1 hour 30 minutes bike, 55 minutes run (I completely forgot to take transition time into account when making this goal). I ended up beating my goals for every single event, and still beating my overall goal by 9 minutes even with the transition times added in. My overall time was 2 hours 51 minutes and 8 seconds.

Results

I placed 85th out of 247 finishers in my age group (Men 25-29) — top 35%, and I placed 519th overall out of ~2400 — top 22%.

Results can be found online in two places – Tri-California Events and BazuMedia (bib # 5398).

More pictures on Flickr

Side Note

Between my Stickk.com weight loss commitment and the great tri training plan that Nina made for me (Thanks Nina!), I have managed to lose about 14 pounds in the last 10 weeks. I’m sure that not carrying around those extra lbs certainly helped my time in the tri!

Upcoming Race Plans

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February 27th, 2008

After taking a short break after Emily and I ran the San Francisco Half Marathon, I am ready to start training for my next event. I have decided to be somewhat ambitious and do a series of different events over the next 6 months. Here is my tentative plan:

• Wildflower Olympic Triathlon – May 4
• Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic – June 12-13
• Alcatraz 100 “Swim with the Centurions” – July 26

If anyone wants to join me at any of these races, let me know.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is – Stickk.com

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February 19th, 2008

So I came across an interesting new startup on Techcrunch the other day – stickk.com.  The idea is to make a “contract” with yourself to help you reach your goals.  Basically, you are putting up real money which you will lose if you fail to meet your goal.  This obviously gives a big financial incentive to follow through and hopefully accomplish your goals.  You can designate the money to go to a charity, an anti-charity (for example, if you hate guns than you don’t want the money to end up going to the NRA), or to a friend.  Having the money go to a friend is like making a bet and having an objective 3rd party hold the money for you until you see how it turns out.

I think it is a great idea and have decided to try it out.  So last night, I made a contract with myself to lose some weight.  One of my goals for the year was to weigh 215 lbs and maintain that weight through the year.  So I am using Stickk.com to help motivate me to get started.  Wish me luck!