Irvine Race Report

Irvine is traditionally the season opener for the UCSD tri team.  This year was no different; we brought around 35 people to compete in the race and for many it was their first triathlon. The race course changed a bit from the previous couple of years – to a more beginner friendly course with many fewer 180-degree turns.  What a relief (although we still had a few team members get too friendly with the pavement).  Last year I opted to used a road bike with aerobars – this year it was my TT bike all the way I couldn’t be seen on anything else (more on the TT bike in a later post).   It was a wise choice as the course was pretty open.   However, I did have to fend off a flock of Stanford athletes so that I could get my bike racked properly in transition.  Apparently they’ll all be sporting Specialized Shivs come nationals…

Trying to look like a runner

The race was a reverse tri; 5k run, 11mi bike, 400 y pool swim.  Leading up the race, I had a fairly heavy training week (~140miles cycling the previous weekend and some intense track workouts during the week).  I also started to feel a little cold/sickness set in.  Nonetheless, I wasn’t going to let a cold stop me and Sergio has been coaching / training us to run fast and efficient on tired legs.  I was fairly confident I was going to set a 5k PR at the beginning of the race.  Confidence is an important thing in triathlon (and any racing sport) – but not too much confidence.  I’m talking about confidence in your training – knowing you’ve put in the work and it will show up on race day.  And indeed it did.  16:43 – a 40 second PR over my best high school cross-country time sophomore year.   About time – that PR was set 10 years ago!   The theme for my tri season this year is ‘finding my running legs’ -  so this isn’t a bad start.  After the run, I had a fairly strong bike to catch up to the race leader.  We jumped into the pool together, but did not leave the pool together.  Overall very satisfied with my race – mainly for the run split.  The real highlight of the race, however, was seeing everyone on the team have such a great time.  I hope many of the new members of the team are “hooked”!   

 Team photo!

 My award: the infamous 'octojellycat' painting. Now sporting a triton in-tentacle.  Irvine hasn't seen the last of this one.

1 minute intervals is the key to finding your "health". 

According a group of scientists in Canada, 30min of exercise 5x a week no longer necessary for "overall good health".  All that is needed is to follow a routine involving "one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90 percent of a person’s maximum heart rate, followed by one minute of easy recovery. The effort and recovery are repeated 10 times, for a total of 20 minutes."  That's it. 20 minutes a day. it is recommended to perform this "perhaps twice a week."  There you have it. 

Someone should tell Sergio (UCSD Triathlon coach).  We've been done 20 x 1 min every Monday on our bike trainers (super high resistance / low cadence).  We are clearly running a high risk of becoming "too healthy".

NYT article link

I don't read the onion very often, but I came across two interesting articles recently that I thought were worth sharing:

Scientists: 'Look, One-Third Of The Human Race Has To Die For Civilization To Be Sustainable, So How Do We Want To Do This?' January 26, 2012

This one touches on the touchy issue of sustainability and the ever increasing human population... I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Anti-Doping Agency Has A Bunch Of Old Tour De France Titles Lying Around If Anybody Wants One February 13, 2012

 

The picture above tells the story...

“The Fish Ear” explained. I have a mild obsession with fish and most generally everything to do with water. 

1.     I’m a graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography studying Biological Oceanography.

2.      I study fish ear bones (called Otoliths).  Otolths are like trees - they have growth rings and from them inferences can be make about how weather and climatic events impact fish growth rates.

3.     Fish and marine sea creatures are most often the subject of my art: jonesfishcarving.com (sadly, this website hasn’t been updated for ages)

4.     I was a competitive swimmer from ages 5 until I was 21.  Including 4 years of D1 collegiate swimming.

5.     I’m now a competitive triathlete. The swim portion is my strength.

6.     I’m very interested in sustainability and the environment (i.e., save the whales)

7.     This list could go on and on…  but at this point you’re probably getting bored with the list.

(this is a fish ear bone or "Otolith")

Why a blog? 

If you know me well, you’d know that I’m not one who you’d expect to have a blog – of any sort.  I don’t really like writing about myself and have always felt that if someone was interested in my accomplishments, they’d ask.  So why a blog?  Well, I’m really not too sure.  I enjoy trying new things, so that is part of it.  Another part is that I don’t like clogging everyone’s newsfeed with constant updates (“OMG, I just fed my gold fish and I think he smiled!”) – so with a blog, you can choose to follow everything, read a few posts everyoneonceandawhile, or just ignore me.  My intention is to post about races, training, news events I find interesting, and some random stuff about my everyday life.  I will keep most of my posts very short with lots of pictures.  I invite you to enjoy!