Pac Grove Triathlon - 2007 09 08

Here is the full wrap up of my first triathlon experience. I am posting a picture per segment with a couple of tips. Here are the summary stats:

Final Time:	3:26:14
Swim:	0:43:43
Swim Transition:	0:04:08
Bike:	1:27:16
Bike Transition:	0:05:01
Run:	1:06:06
Bike Mile/Hour:	17
Run Min/Mile:	0:10:39

I got to Pacific Grove on Friday afternoon for the registration. After that, went into the water for a very quick swim. Idea was to get used to the water (and the kelp!) but not use up too much energy.

In the evening, all the Team In Training participants got together for a pasta dinner. Load up on them carbohydrates. Early to bed, early to rise. Woke up at 5:30 am, left the hotel at 6:30 am, all set up in the transition area by 7:30 am.

See full Flickr album:

See the full course map:

Swim:

My wave went into the water at 8:30 am. Some tips I learned:

• Eat a packet of GU just before getting in the water. It really helps.
• Unless you are going for time, or are super excited, stay on one side towards the back. Let the adrenaline junkies go, kick each other, claw through the kelp. You can have a much better start to the race and not really loose that much time.
• Be careful of where you are headed. This unfortunately requires popping your head out once in a while to orient yourself. My huge problem is that I swim left. Apart from running into people, this caused me to loose a lot of time by going off course twice.
• You will feel weird when you get out of the water. I think it has something to do with blood going out of the head or something. I don't know the medical reason, but you don't feel 100% normal as soon as you stand up out of the water. My cure for that was to just focus immediately in front and start pounding your feet. You get out of the water faster plus it starts your blood circulation.

Bike:

A quick (for me) 4 minute transition, and I'm off on the bike. I ate another GU packet. Plus some Gatorade. More tips:

• Keep hydrating. I figured out that I was loosing a lot of water through perspiration, although it's hard to know since it evaporates quickly. But as a Team In Training coach said, if you feel like you're thirsty, it's already too late.
• Pac Grove has 4 loops of the bike path. You loose count pretty quickly. Have a good way to keep track of this. I put 4 small tape strips on the handle and took one off at the end of each loop (a tip from a Team In Training coach).
• Try and have good foot movement. Don't keep your feet pointing down or pointing up. Your foot should move as if it's "scraping the floor" at the bottom of each stroke.
• Pound with the quads :) Running is hard on the glutes, hamstrings and calves. Use the quads more on the bike.

Run:

5 minute transition, longer this time due to a restroom break. And my glutes are hurting like crazy. This is by far the most painful time during the race. Of the 6 miles, the first mile was mostly walking and stretching. 2nd mile was a consistent but restricted leg movement to keep moving. At the end of the 3rd mile, I lost all sensation of pain :) and then I started running and maintained a good pace till the end.

I developed a good sense of how much energy I had left, and reserved some of it to finish with a sprint. The crowd loved it, and it felt fantastic. Tips again:

• Focus on the moment. I was so tired and in so much pain, that I could not concentrate on running. The thing that really helped was looking down at the ground, about 2-3 steps in front of me, and focusing on that. Just take those next steps, don't think about the end.
• Run in the middle of the road where it is more flat. On the edges, the slope is not good for your feet.
• Pick someone in front of you and focus on keeping pace or beating them.

The result:

I did much better than my guess of 4 hours :) Below is the official report from their website (click for full size).

I was very hungry, very tired. In some pain, but that went away very quickly. Now it's all about recovery and then trying to maintain some athletic level.

Retiring the fundraising page

Taking out the link from the top of the blog that went to my fundraising page:

>>> Click here to help me raise money for cancer research... and run a triathlon! <<<

Thank you everyone who contributed and made it possible for me to meet my fundraising goal.

-
Abid Mohsin

Sprint Triathlon pictures

Team In Training just put the pictures from last weekend's triathlon on their website. Here are the stages of my first triathlon experience:


1. Before starting, we pose for a group picture. I am the 4th person standing from the right:



2. And we are off! I am about 1/3 of the way in from the right, the second guy running into the water.



3. Swimming out to sea! ... or towards Oakland :)



4. I finally make it out of the water.



5. On the bike and biking hard. At this point I am hitting my limit of energy output. I can only bike so fast. And I am beginning to hate my bike. It weighs a lot, and people biking less hard are overtaking me since they have lighter bikes.



6. The run is long, and it is painful. I am trying hard not to think about it and just powering through.



7. After the triathlon, we have a picnic. All I want to do is eat eat eat.



8. I'm happy. Why not? It's a naice.

Training Week 10 - Sunday - The number is 1:35:40 :)

That's the time I took to complete a Sprint distance triathlon. The Sprint distance is:

• 0.3 mile swim (or 500 meters)
  
• 12.3 mile bike ride
• 3 mile run

Time from entering the water to running across the finish line: 1 hour 35 minutes 40 seconds

We did it on Treasure Island, between San Francisco and Oakland, just off the Bay Bridge. It is not the ocean, but part of the San Fran Bay. Below is an aerial shot with the routes and distances.

This was the first time I tried on my wetsuit and swam in open water. The water was not as cold as I thought it would be. The hardest challenge I had was to focus my mind and just swim. I hyperventilated, I panicked when I crashed into people, I was thinking of the movie "Jaws". It took real effort to not give up and just keep on swimming out to sea.

I will try and do more open water swims between now and the Olympic triathlon on September 8th. I was really happy that I had more swim endurance than the 500 meters I did today. But I'll be doing a full mile for the Olympic, and I'll need mental focus and calm along with endurance to make it through.

Training Week 10 - Sunday - Bricks

Biking and running was the order of the weekend. Both days.

On Saturday, went up north to do a 36 miles bike ride, and then a 15 minute run... just to get our legs used to running after biking.

On Sunday, went up to Crissy Field and did a Bike + Run with a partner. One person started running, the other took off on the bike. Then the person on the bike would dump the bike on the side of the road and start running. The second person would get on the bike once he/she got to it, and then take off, pass the first person and dump the bike again on the side of the road. Repeat. Until you did 4 loops of a section of the field in front of Sports Basement (see map below).

Each loop was ~1.4 miles. So, total distance was about 5.5 miles. Wow, that's almost the 6 miles I am supposed to do a month from now in the actual tri.

Next weekend is our practice tri, and the first time I will be in open water (having missed all of our previous open water practices). It will be a Sprint distance tri. I'm really looking forward to it.



Also, I am posting this with ScribeFire, a Firefox blogging add-on. Hope it turns out well.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Training Week 10 - Tuesday - Swimming drills and tips

Wow, can't believe it's already week 10. This week I'm going to try to do the training in the morning before coming into work. I'm also trying to mix the activities up, so my body gets used to transitioning from one to another.

Today in the morning, I went to 24 Hour Fitness for a brief swim and then a bike ride (on a stationary bike). I thought I should catalogue the different swimming drills I've learned in the past weeks:

1. Side 6 kick (illustration below): My favorite, excellent for getting comfortable with rolling from side to side. You push off, extend one arm, let's say the left arm, keep it straight, keep your head right next to it and have your body be vertical on that axis, i.e. your stomach is pointing right, your right shoulder is above the water, your hips are vertical. Your right arm is at your side and you are just kicking and breathing. Breath by just moving your head from side to side, i.e. head pointing to the left shoulder in this case would be underwater and head pointing to the right shoulder would be above water. After 6 kicks or 3 breaths, stroke 3 times, in this case it would be right arm, left, right, and then keep the right arm straight and your left shoulder out of the water and your stomach pointing left. Repeat kick. Repeat strokes and turn.
   
2. Close-fist drill: Just like normal freestyle swimming but with your arms closed in a fist rather than open palm. This forces you to use your forearms and the rest of the arms for paddling rather than relying exclusively on the open palms. Excellent for building stroke strength.
3. Reach: In each stroke, try and reach your arm as far as possible and go as far as you can per stroke. Initially requires some strength and a lot of stretching. This is used to make your swimming more efficient, with each stroke you go farther.
4. Fingertip drag: When you are extending an arm or bringing it forward for the stroke, drag the fingertips on the top of the water until the arm is fully extended in front. This helps with your stroke form, i.e. how your arm comes forward. Your elbow should be up, and this helps with it.
5. Wine barrel: In each stroke, when you extend your arm fully in front and are about to bring it down and back, imagine that you are swimming in a pool full of wine barrels and need to reach over a barrel with your arm and push it back. This will make your arm arch a bit. Improves your stroke.
6. One-arm strokes: Start out like the Side 6 Kick, let's say left arm in front. Then stroke with your right arm only. So the right goes up, comes in front to meet the left arm, and then comes down and back. Do not move the left arm while you stroke. Do this for 3 strokes and then do 3 normal strokes and repeat with the other arm.
7. Pyramid: This is basically an endurance building drill. You increase the yards between each break. For example, you can start with 50 yards, rest 20 seconds, 100 yards, rest 20 seconds, 150 yards, rest 20 seconds, 100 yards, rest, 50 yards. Build up from there. Recently, the low end of the training group was doing 100, 200, 300, 200, 100 or something like that.
8. Kick: Just simple kick. Extend your arms forward, grab a floating board if you have one, and then kick kick kick. Move from your hips, not from your knees.

 I'll follow the above drills with general swimming tips:

1. Breathing and endurance come with practice.
2. Breath out constantly while your head is underwater. If you are hyperventilating initially, i.e. taking small short quick breaths, this is a good way to cure that.
3. You should be looking down, with the top of your head pointing forward. See the difference that makes in the following illustration:
   
   By keeping your head down, your body becomes horizontal, greatly reducing the drag and improving overall efficiency. If your head is up, the body follows, becoming more vertical and getting a lot of resistance from the water. You can feel the difference by doing the Kick drill with your head up and then your head down.
4. Focus on having your elbow point up and be above your hand as you bring your stroking arm forward out of the water.
5. When an arm is coming forward, the shoulder for that arm should be above the water. Sorta obvious I guess, but helps in rolling your body side to side with each stroke.
6. To aid with rolling your body, focus on moving your hips. If your hips become vertical, your body will follow.

Wow, a long post.

Training Week 5 - Saturday - Started in San Francisco, ended in London

I flew to London this Friday. Slept as much as I could on the plane, so I can spend the rest of the day playing with my nephews.

Since we had a feast for dinner, I decided to go out for a midnight run. Ran up Warwick Road, and then on to Kensington High Street. Turned back at Exhibition Road (see map below).

Total distance = 1.7 x 2 miles = 3.4 miles

I did the first 1.7 miles with 5 stops. I did the return 1.7 miles with 3 stops. The idea is to increase the distance and reduce/maintain the stops.

I just need to stretch a little, and then off to bed.

Training Week 5 - Thursday - Vacation training routine

I am off to London this Friday, for a 3 week vacation. Hurray! Since I won't be doing the regular training while traveling, I asked the Team in Training head coach for what I can do to not fall behind. I am about average in my group for biking, and definitely bottom third in run and swim. So she gave me this routine:

Swim

If you can get to a pool and you only have 30 minutes, do these drills:

1. One arm swimming - With one arm straight out in front of you, swim with one arm only, turning you body on the side so the lead arm is under your head. Recover, breathe, reach out and start over again.  
2. Catch up - Similar to above, but when your swimming arm touches the water in front of your head, leave that arm out straight and pull with the other arm.  In other words, alternate arms pulling but don't start the pull until the recovering arm touches the water in front of your head.  Think long body whenver your arm is outstretched.
3. 6 kick and stroke - like we've done in the pool at workouts.  Alternate lengths drill/swim on all drill sets.

Run

You can do this every other day if you have the opportunity.  Run about 30 minutes to start, alternating run/walk, for example 9 minutes run, 1 minute walk.  Concentrate on short quick steps to reduce the stress on your legs and feet.  Build up by 5 minute increments each week so that your endurance gradually increases.

Now I just need to practice it :)

Also, today at the team run, I was given a red cape for showing team spirit. Yay!

Training Week 3 - Sunday

Got a healthy serving of whoop-ass today. We couldn't get a swimming pool, so decided to do a team bike + run. We lined up our running shoes next to a wall, got on our bikes and did a 7 mile loop. Then left our bikes next to the wall, put on our running shoes and went for a run around the track at Redwood High School. Done. Repeat.

I was able to do it 3 times.

We were able to stretch and laugh at the end of it, but man was it tough.

So that was the end of the training.

After a shower, it was off to the Gay Pride Parade on Market Street, San Francisco. Posting a Flick badge of the pictures I took below:

www.flickr.com

Training Week 3 - Thursday

I guess I am thinking too much about my running technique, which is a good thing. But it is making me a bit cautious and making me run really slowly. Today, we were supposed to have a 2 mile timed run at Kezar Stadium. I couldn't make the team run, so I went there in the morning to run on my own. I estimated how long the track was and finished my 2 miles. "Wow! I am awesome", I thought, "How fast I've built up my endurance". I had done 2 miles in about 15 minutes. Naaice!

I was walking out and thought I'd double-check my calculation with a group of hardcore athletes training there. Seems like I need a new pair of glasses, because the track distance was almost half of what I thought it was. Shit! I had done just one mile and had another to go.

The headline of this blog post is: I run a mile in 13 minutes.

That's slow. I need to improve on that. Step #1 is building endurance, and that just comes with practice.

Training Week 2 - Sunday - Tips for biking

Had a good swim and bike today. Did a few drills in the pool, and then got dressed for some biking tips and then a short bike ride (around 10 miles). Since my poor bike is a really old piece of wrought iron, I had some difficulty keeping up with the leader. But the bike pedals really help. Anyhoo, here were the tips:

• Keep your knees on top of your feet, don't let them come out while pedaling
• Anticipate the gear shifts, i.e. if you are going towards a hill, shift to a lower gear ratio before you hit the incline
• When you shift, don't just think about changing one gear at a time, think of the gear ratio. This might mean shifting both the front and the back gears at once. They showed us a chart that looked like the one below
• Let your legs tell you when you shift, if they feel heavy shift to a lower gear ratio, if you are bouncing up and down shift to a higher gear ratio
• Keep your legs turning as much as possible, even when you are coasting. Not turning them can lead to building up waste material in your legs
• The optimal cadence, i.e. pedals per minute is around 85 - 95. This also happens to be the same as the optimal cadence for running, i.e you should take 85 - 95 steps per minute. The goal is to be within 80 - 100 pedals per minute and over time build a sense of always being in the optimal range

So that's that. Looking forward to not doing anything tomorrow, Monday, the rest day.

Graph taken from: http://phys.csuchico.edu/~eayars/gearing.shtml

Training Week 2 - Wednesday

Yesterday was bike day. Had an awesome bike ride.

I was supposed to go biking for 30 - 45 minutes, with 1 - 2 periods of med-high strain. I decided to time it using my oh-so-pretty iPod Nano, in it's new Belkin sport strap. Then I used Google Earth to figure out the distances.

Below are the results:

Segment	Clock time	Time elapsed	Distance covered (miles)	Avg. Speed (miles per minute)	Avg. Speed (miles per hour)
Start - Lincoln Way at 9th Ave	19:50:00
Get to beach through Route 1 - JFK Dr at Great Hwy	20:02:00	0:12:00	3.73	0.31	18.65
Return through Route 1	20:20:00	0:18:00	3.73	0.21	12.43
Get to beach through Route 2 - Lincoln Way at Great Hwy	20:30:00	0:10:00	2.75	0.28	16.50
Return through Route 2	20:43:00	0:13:00	2.75	0.21	12.69
Get home - Lawton St at 10th Ave	20:53:00	0:10:00	0.63	0.06	3.78

So what's the pattern?

I start off with more energy maybe? Possibly, but it's more of a downhill vs. uphill story. The high speed segment are all downhill... which makes sense, since I am going from slightly above sea-level to actual sea-level.

Today is swim day. I need to practice all the drills. It's not going to be great.

Training Week 1 - Sunday

Team swim and bike day.

Went to Redwood High School in Larkspur in the morning. They have a great pool (see us swimming on the right, or the satellite image below).

We split amongst three groups (Age, Pro, Elite) by our self-assessed swim athleticism. Age was defined as: If you haven't swam before. "Hmmm, not me" I said to myself, and moved into the Pro group. Man, was I out of my league.

Here are my problems:

1. Bad technique
2. Hyperventilating, i.e. breathing too much and not getting enough good air into my lungs

I need to practice their drills this coming week and hopefully be in better shape for the team swim coming next Sunday.

Training Week 1 - Friday - Tips for running

Went for the first run yesterday, 3 rounds around Kezar Stadium (route shown below, courtesy Google Earth).

We congregated in the parking lot/field outside at 6:30 pm, and immediately went for 2 rounds around Kezar Stadium. 0.7 miles each, so 1.4 miles. Then came and did a bunch of exercises, for balance and preventing injuries. And then went for a "cool down" run, another 0.7 miles.

In total, I ran 2.1 miles yesterday... after not having run for the last many years. My legs are shot to hell today, and I hope I recover in time for tomorrow's team run.

Tips for running from the head coach:

• "I never want to see the soles of your shoes when you are running towards me": Basically, in your forward stride, don't have your toes pointing up and don't land on your heel. Two bad things happen:
1. You land on your heel and it has a big impact on a small area of your foot. This can also cause other problems since you are not in a proper form to absorb that impact.
2. The way the foot lands acts as a brake or hurdle. This hampers your momentum and your body now has to go up and over that hurdle.
• "Let your feet naturally come up behind you, using your hamstring": Simple enough.
• "And then just let your foot fall forward": Don't go for big lunges in running. Let your foot fall forward and have it so that it's underneath your center of gravity. This way you will have your leg right under your body, making it easier for the bady to absorb the impact.
• "Short light steps everyone, short light steps": Okay, got it.
• "Your arms are connected to your legs": Don't move them too much, and don't move them forward. Try and keep your elbows back. This helps your feet keep back as well (see tip #1 above).
• "When you are tired, your shoulders come up next to your ear": Your arms are moving to aid your upper body move in sync with the legs. So you should have your shoulder wide, not up, not back, just wide, and let your arms move freely.
• "Strong core helps fight strain and injury": Rather than having extra strong legs, focus on having a strong core, i.e. stomach and lower back muscles. This keeps your hips steady and keeps good running form.
• "The purpose is to get from point A to point B using as little energy as possible... while actually moving": Efficiency efficiency efficiency.

I'll be practicing these tomorrow.

Training Week 1 - Wednesday

Training officially started yesterday, with a bike ride through Golden Gate park.

Total distance: 8.6 miles

(See bike path below, from Google Earth. Click on image for big version)

Today is swimming. I still need to read up on how much I have to do. Will be heading to 24 Hour Fitness after work to get my swim on.

Team in Training kick off

Had the kick off meeting for Team in Training at the Oakland Marriot. They really put a lot of effort into it. Very well organized, everything laid out. Got a packet and everything.

After the initial session, we broke into individual team rooms. Went over what's ahead, training and fundraising. I was one of the only people to have set up my website and to have recieved a donation!  I got a Powerbar gel for it :)

I have a bunch of things to read, with special attention to my training schedule. Training starts from tomorrow, Tuesday, June 5th. Here is what it looks like:

• Mondays are rest days
• Tuesdays are Bike days
• Wednesdays are Swim days
• Thursdays are Run days
• Fridays are Swim days again
• Saturdays are workouts with the Team Captain, Run
• Sundays are workouts with the Coach, Swim and Bike

Gotta go figure out when/where/how to do my first bike tomorrow.

Getting started for the triathlon kickoff (T -14 days)

After many weeks of not doing anything, I finally started getting ready for the triathlon. The kickoff is on June 2nd (hence the T -14 days on the title), and the actual triathlon is September 9th (which is T -113 days).

So, what has been done:

1. Set up fundraising site: http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/abidmohsin
• Crop image using Gimp
• Upload image to Flickr to embed on page
• Create step-by-step guide using Powerpoint, and embed on page using SlideAware
• Put link to page in my Gmail signature
2. Decide to get in shape by getting a membership to 24 Hour Fitness
3. Go on a bike ride, but stop and watch the Bay to Breakers crowd

Next steps:

1. Send out emails to tell everyone about it
2. ... and ask for donations

But it's getting late right now. Will tackle that tomorrow.

-
Abid

oDesk presentation for the PC Magazine SMB Award

Here is the presentation from Slideshare (link, or see below):

Weekend has gone by 2006 10 22

IMG_1523, originally uploaded by abdmhsn.

San Francisco was pretty awesome yesterday, right now it's getting foggy.

I'm about to take off to the Thirsty Bear, where a friend is performing Flamenco. I wish I had more time to learn all these cool things. Not that the weekend was unfulfilling, there just isn't that much variety in my everyday life.

I need to start putting something good on this crappy blog. Maybe figure out a way to store my big thoughts everyday and publish them here easily.

Someone actually read my blog

oDesk is hiring! Yes, it's true. After raising the second round (lead by Benchmark, previous investors are Globespan and Sigma), we are looking to expand the business aggressively and also hiring for some pretty awesome positions.

So, we put up the Careers page, and have been looking for kick ass candidates.

In one of my phone conversations, a candidate said that she had Googled my name (typical) found my blog (uh oh) and actually spent time reading it (What the *&$%?).

Someone actually took the time to read this crappy blog. That's amazing.

Also embarrassing.

So I've decided to at least put some effort into this site. Shouldn't come off as a complete idiot.

I think the next step would be to start putting stuff from my Flickr account.