Smoothie

I often treat myself to a smoothie after a run, from Jamba Juice. As I plan to track my nutrition (probably not every single meal, just here and there), I took a look at the nutrition folder that was available.

I had the Jamba Powerboost, regular (i.e. medium) size. Next time I'll bring something to write this info down on, but from memory the drink had 440 calories, 103 grams of carbs, and 10 grams of fat.

I'm not sure if that is good or bad, but the calories and carbs sound really high!

Redmond Watershed Run (Base)

I did a <70% run at the Redmond Watershed - 5 miles in approximately 53:30, for a 10:42 minute/mile.

This continues to surprise me. I was faster on the trail run at the Redmond Watershed than I was on the SRT. Yet, the Redmond Watershed has various small rolling hills, and the SRT is flat.

I have no explanation - I can't believe there is enough downhill running (faster and at a lower heart rate) to make up for the slower pace uphill. I think I'll redo the SRT run sometime next week.

Weigh-in

I bought one of those fancy bathroom scales that can also measure percentage body fat. I know the accuracy depends on a bunch of factors - eventually I will get into a habit of measuring at the same time of day, with the same level of hydration, etc.

For now, I weight 141.2 pounds, and have 15.4% body fat. My BMI is 23.5.

It will be interesting to see if these numbers change much over the upcoming months.

Sammamish River Trail Run (Base)

I ran after work, 5 miles along the SRT which is flat. The goal was to establish a baseline - how long it takes when I keep my heart rate below 70%.

Results: 5 miles in 55 minutes, for an 11 minute/mile. I thought it would be a little faster as this trail was flat compared to the power trail, but then I had a triathlon just 2 days ago and may still be recovering.

Also, it is tricky keeping my heart rate under 70%. Well, actually the problem is keeping it close to 70%. Under is easy, sometime I'll glance at my HRM and notice my heart rate has slipped to 60% to 65%. This isn't bad, but skews the results slower. Plus, it was pretty dark for the last half of the run and I couldn't see the HRM without punching a button for the backlight.

Again, no big deal. This is just early season information gathering. As I do this more and more perhaps I'll find the magic cadence and/or rhythm that keeps my heart rate steady at just under 70%.

Black Diamond Analysis

My last tri of the 2004 season was yesterday, an olympic distance event. Well, sub-olympic as the bike course was 2 miles short due to construction.

I finished in 3:00:13. My swim was 39:33, bike was 1:22:33, and run was 50:11.

I had a slow swim, finishing in the 93rd percentile. I can chalk part of this up to foggy conditions - I knew during the swim itself I was taking more than the usual navigation breaks, and also pausing longer at some of them. But still, everyone else in the water faced the same situation and it isn't as if I were in the lead and had nobody to sight off of.

The bike was also slow, I was the 90th percentile. I averaged 16.03 mph, which is essentially what I want to average for the ironman. Clearly, I need some work on this as one would hope averaging 16 mph for an ironman would mean being able to average more for an olympic which is about 20% of the distance.

My run was a bright spot, at least for me. That split was the 56th percentile, substantially different than my performance in the other two legs.

I was 224th out of the water, dropped to 226th after the bike, and improved to 200th due to my run.

One thing, I've been slacking ever since Apple Capital. That tri and Hagg Lake are on far tougher courses and I finished just minutes slower than I did at Black Diamond.

What is also interesting to me if calculating how many minutes I would save if I were to become a 50th percentile athlete. For the swim, that meant 8 minutes, and for the bike, 10 minutes. For the run, less than 1 minute, more like 40 seconds. Clearly, my time is best spent working on the bike, and maintaining the swim and run. I could use swim improvement but the amount of effort for the payoff isn't worth it, when I need to work on the bike so much.

Anyway, I have one more run coming up, then I'm taking a week or so off before starting back up. The word for the 2005 season is: BIKE!

Ratios

This is just purely for fun. Tonight I ate with T2 and some friends, and the question of the ratio of men to women (at triathlons) was raised.

I'm just going to sample two local races for each distance, and just one ironman race.

Ratios

Distance	Event	Men	Women	Ratio
Sprint	Seafair	538	506	1.1 : 1
Sprint	Kirkland	445	344	1.3 : 1
Olympic	Blue Lake	256	122	2.1 : 1
Olympic	Cascades Edge	82	43	1.9 : 1
Half-iron	Pacific Crest	438	154	2.8 : 1
Half-iron	Troika	173	73	2.4 : 1
Ironman	Arizona	1805	537	3.4 : 1

The trend is clear - stick with the shorter distances for a higher ratio of women!! So said from the male perspective. :-)