So the Riverwood Triathlon in Clayton was this morning and though I was signed up and have been training up for it, I skipped.  I feel guilty about it, but the bottom line was that I wasnt ready or in any shape for it.  From Wednesday to Friday I had about 5 hours sleep.  I went to bed when the AC installers left at a little after two in the morning Wednesday night.  The next day I had to study and take a Calculus quiz for my MBA classes, in addition to working.  In the end I got to bed about one or so for Thursday.  Friday I was woken up at 7:30 by the AC guy calling to come back and fix the thermostat.

So I had already been feeling pretty iffy about my swim, I was tired all day Friday, had yet to get my equipment together or buy tri-shorts, and would have to be up about 5:30 am today to get out there.  Monday I have my first MBA exam in Statistics, followed by a Management exam on Wednesday.  Put it all together and I decided to skip the Triathlon.  I feel guilty about it but it was probably for the best as I would’ve performed extremely poorly.  The original person who was going to do it with me had already dropped out previously so I wasnt letting anyone down by skipping, other than my own competitiveness.   Ill sign up for the next one I can find which wont have all these issues bearing down on me plus Ill be better prepared.

As a penance, in a sense, I’m going to do the Race of Grace 5K in downtown Raleigh tomorrow at four.  Since its less than 5 minutes away and I can get ready, head down, race, and be back in less than an hour it will be a nice break from studying and at least Ill feel like I did something worthwhile this weekend.  I wont be able to race any next weekend because of Cinco De Mayo celebrations and the next weekend I will be at a friends bachelor party for four days.   So it will be good to at least get one more race in before my two weekend break.

As a side note, VS is broadcasting the Tour of Georgia today and tomorrow from 4-6 before the hockey broadcasts start up.

This was the year that I was going to move up from the cycling equivalent of a K-Car, my Raleigh, and move into the big leagues with Carbon, etc for the Livestrong Challenge. Circumstances, however, once again come into play. Last week my Air Conditioning went out and I had a guy come take a look. After a few hundred in repairs to the box that had burned out connecting my AC unit to the building we found out that the compressor unit outside was shot. When I told him that it was the original unit from when my condos were constructed in 1985, he said that I definitely got my money’s worth out of it.

In the end we decided to replace the whole setup which included the air handler, compressor unit, and thermostat. The argument was that the units both were way over their life expectancy and now that one had gone the chances of the handler going were high given its length of service. Rather than pay for them to come install the new compressor unit and then replace the handler whenever it decides to go, it should all be knocked out at once. In theory Ill be saving on the costs of another service visit, installation, and labor doing it all at once.

Regardless, now the money I had marked in my head over the course of this year going into a newer, lighter, faster bike will instead be going into my home. At least this way Ill get the money back out when I move again. The only solution is to get a lot lighter and a lot faster on my Raleigh to make up for the difference. Ron told me about a friend of his that crushes everyone on the nightly rides and rode 15 years on an old Trek. It’s all about the training and this locks up buying a trainer. For a couple hundred I can train daily at home and get that speed that I would’ve gotten off a new bike (in theory).

I have to be honest and say that the Habitat for Humanity 5K was by far the hardest 5K course Ive done so far. Its the closest Ive ever come to stopping to walk since my very first 5K attempt. I also have to say that finishing it was a pretty good sense of accomplishment that I haven’t felt on too many courses lately. I guess that there is a lot of truth in satisfaction being related to the level of difficulty of the task. My time for the race was 23:31 with an average pace of 7:36 per mile, thats about 28 seconds off my 5K PR. When I saw those results I was really surprised based on how I felt while running.

The day didn’t start off too well since I woke up 10 minutes before eight and Charlie was supposed to be picking me up in a few minutes. I had put my running shorts in the was planning on waking up in time to throw them in the drier and be ready to go. Instead I got to throw them in the drier while running around getting all my crap together and getting ready to go. Then at about a quarter after eight I finally called Charlie since he hadnt shown up yet and got no answer. After leaving a message I gave Zack a call and coordinated meeting up at the race and headed out. Luckily the delay meant that my shorts were slightly moist instead of soaked.

The race was timed solely on gun time since we only crossed the timing mat at the finish line. There were a few hundred people out there and a lot of them were college students, which makes sense since it was on NC State’s Centennial Campus. The race started on a downhill before taking a right up a moderate hill to a turnaround, then back down and straight across the starting road up a steeper hill to a turnaround. Each hill was a progression in length and grade up to the final hill. After the second hill we turned back onto the downhill we had first come down. By the second hill my legs were already burning, Im guessing from the swimming the day before and not a lot of recovery overall. The downhill we started on was a lot steeper going up than the first two hills and was kind of surprising. At this point, two miles were covered and we were back up to the false flat of the start/finish line which was really just an extremely slight raise before the big hill kicked in.

The last hill was the monster of the course and was about twice as long as the longest hill to that point with the same steepness. About halfway up I was in a pretty big battle with myself over whether to walk or keep going. I was passing people who were losing that internal battle while I kept debating. I finally saw the turnaround and basically did a screw you to myself and started to try to pick up the pace so that I could start the downhill. My heart rate monitor was pegged between 175 and 180 the entire hill and took about halfway back down to get back to 170 and under. There were a few people passing me on the downhill and I picked up the pace for what little I had left and kept my place to the finish but had no kick to pick up any places.

Zack fared a lot better on the course than I did, running it last year and knowing what to expect probably helped. In the end he came in at three minutes behind me but crushed his old 5K PR on a course that didn’t lend itself to that kind of race. Each race he gets closer and closer to my time and I fully expect him to start running me down in the next few months. My times are changing by seconds while he’s changing by minutes.

Overall a fun race and Ill be happy to do it again. If I had to find a complaint it would be that we had to tie the champion chip to our shoes with our shoelaces rather than being given zip ties. At the end, stopping and bending over to untie it was not a fun experience and I prefer the normal zip ties that you can just rip the chip off with and keep walking.

Click Here for Habitat for Humanity House Your Neighbor 5K Results

Oh yeah, I made it to the pool today and got in 50 laps (1250 yards)

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the Habitat for Humanity House Your Neighbor 5K on the NCSU Centennial Campus. My friend Zack did this race last year and said that it was full of some pretty steep and tough hills. I used to work on Centennial Campus so I know at least one of the hills he’s referring to, and I know that one will be a pain. I’ve only gotten in one run this week but with all the swimming and soccer I don’t feel like I slacked off any. I’m not expecting to put in a PR or anything close but it should be a fun race none the less. As long as I stay in line with how my 5K’s have been going lately Ill consider it a worthwhile event.

As a side note I was also able to knock out 30 laps in the pool this morning. I did the 12 consecutive laps that I’ll have to do in the triathlon next weekend if I feel up for it. After about 7 I started dragging and taking a bit more time in the turnaround but I did do all 12 in under nine minutes. So we’ll see. Based on my swim Monday morning Ill decide for sure whether Ill do the triathlon or if my swim just isn’t going to cut it.

While browsing the web today I came across a post in a running forum with the actual distance of this race.  The poster had emailed the race coordinator and was told the 10K course was actually 5.86 miles.  The explanation was that there are two 10K courses at the site and those that marked the race course used the wrong map which resulted in the turnaround being in the wrong spot.

The 5K course was .17 of a mile off as well.