Today I entered my first running race of 2009, The Hayes Hustle. The 5K race is held at Hayes Elementary School (Catholic), which hosted the race in Muscatine. This is only my second 5K run since I began running in August of 2008. My first was a 5K trail run in September of last year. I wanted to do a taper so my body was ready for this run, but I went out Thursday night (2 days before) and rode my bike on the Muscatine Cycling Club's paceline ride. It is supposed to be an 18-20 mph pace, but that night we hardly fell below 20mph. So my legs were dead meat when I got home that night. I did take Friday off of running and riding, but really could of used one more day to rest up.
The race started at 9am and there were just over 200 runners. Our first mile was mostly flat and the 2nd mile was a good downhill, but the last mile was all up hill. There were timers out on the route that shouted out our times at the end of mile 1 and 2. My first split was 6:41, the second was 6:59 and my last was 8:19 for a total of 21:59 (an average of 7:05/mile). My time was 3 minutes faster than the 5K I completed last fall. The biggest difference was this was on pavement, while the run last fall was a trail run on a very hilly course.
I ended up getting first in my age group (55-59) out of 6 runners and overall was 25th out of 206 runners. Since I am primarily a cyclist I thought I did a pretty good job competing against other full-time runners. I only have about 50 running miles in for the whole year, while I have running friends that put in that many miles each week. My next running race is in mid-May.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
What Is A Brevet
Well today I found out. At 8am 13 of us left LeClaire heading to Bellevue and then back to LeClaire. This was a 200km (125 mile) Brevet and was sponsored by the Quad City Randonneur Club. Randonneur is a French word that means, a male long distance cyclist. And a Brevet is a sponsored ride that requires certification of your completion of a Randonne'e. And a Randonne'e is a long ramble (ride) in the country side which is a timed event and with a time constraint on how long you have to complete it.
Besides myself there were 3 other riders from Muscatine, Chad, Bill and Joe.
At the start of the race we were issued a certificate that had certain control points that we must stop and get a signature and a time posted on the card. Our first control point was Low Moor, which was 44.7 km into the ride. The control was a conveience store and the clerk signed and wrote the time on our cards. The second control point was Bellevue at 103.2 km. Then on the return we went back to Low Moor at 161.1 km an ended back at the Comfort Inn in LeClaire for the end.
After the first half hour we had broken into two groups and I was in the last group. Each group had 6 people and the 13th person was behind us all. At the first control point, the first group was just leaving the convenience store when we pulled into town. One of the riders in the first group had gotten dropped and we picked him up just before we got into Low Moor. Just before we got to Bellevue we picked up another rider. The first group was still taking a break in Bellevue when we pulled into the convenience store. When we left Bellevue there were 4 (including Chad, Bill and Joe) in the first group and 8 in our group. By the time we got to Low Moor our group had whittled down to 6. We all stayed together into LeClaire and I checked in at 3:41.
My bicycle computer registered 17.4 mph average and 7 hours and 11 minutes. The additional 30 minutes reported on my check-in time is attributed to the 3 stops we made. The ride was pretty hilly and the organizers indicated that there was 4,350' of climbing.
A brevet ride is pretty structured and the organizers have to file our stamped tickets and register our ride in France, where our names get added to the "Roll Of Honor" for cyclists. Woop-ee.
The weather was pretty good today. The temps were cold for the first 2 hours with low 30's during the start and a northeast headwind at 9mph. It did warm up as the day progressed, but the winds shifted more to the east and we didn't have much of a tailwind coming back. My legs are a little sore and of course I am tired and there were times I wanted to drop off the pace and slow down, but I survived and the other riders I rode with were good to cycle with. There were a few riders from the Quad Cities, but surprising there were several from out of town. One was from Galesburg and another was from Cedar Falls. Two other riders I didn't catch where they were from, but they had stayed at the Comfort Inn the night before, so must have been from out of town.
This picture was taken on the return route of a silage silo on a farm.
Besides myself there were 3 other riders from Muscatine, Chad, Bill and Joe.
At the start of the race we were issued a certificate that had certain control points that we must stop and get a signature and a time posted on the card. Our first control point was Low Moor, which was 44.7 km into the ride. The control was a conveience store and the clerk signed and wrote the time on our cards. The second control point was Bellevue at 103.2 km. Then on the return we went back to Low Moor at 161.1 km an ended back at the Comfort Inn in LeClaire for the end.
After the first half hour we had broken into two groups and I was in the last group. Each group had 6 people and the 13th person was behind us all. At the first control point, the first group was just leaving the convenience store when we pulled into town. One of the riders in the first group had gotten dropped and we picked him up just before we got into Low Moor. Just before we got to Bellevue we picked up another rider. The first group was still taking a break in Bellevue when we pulled into the convenience store. When we left Bellevue there were 4 (including Chad, Bill and Joe) in the first group and 8 in our group. By the time we got to Low Moor our group had whittled down to 6. We all stayed together into LeClaire and I checked in at 3:41.
My bicycle computer registered 17.4 mph average and 7 hours and 11 minutes. The additional 30 minutes reported on my check-in time is attributed to the 3 stops we made. The ride was pretty hilly and the organizers indicated that there was 4,350' of climbing.A brevet ride is pretty structured and the organizers have to file our stamped tickets and register our ride in France, where our names get added to the "Roll Of Honor" for cyclists. Woop-ee.
The weather was pretty good today. The temps were cold for the first 2 hours with low 30's during the start and a northeast headwind at 9mph. It did warm up as the day progressed, but the winds shifted more to the east and we didn't have much of a tailwind coming back. My legs are a little sore and of course I am tired and there were times I wanted to drop off the pace and slow down, but I survived and the other riders I rode with were good to cycle with. There were a few riders from the Quad Cities, but surprising there were several from out of town. One was from Galesburg and another was from Cedar Falls. Two other riders I didn't catch where they were from, but they had stayed at the Comfort Inn the night before, so must have been from out of town.
This picture was taken on the return route of a silage silo on a farm.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Century Territory
Today one of our club members, Joe made plans for a century. The plan was to start at 10 and get in 50 by 1:00 and then go out again and do the last 50. We had another windy day with a 15 mph wind out of the east and the wind chill was in the upper 30's to mid 40's throughout the day.
Seven of our club members (including 3 of the riders joining me on my Colorado ride) came out for the first 50 and two more joined us part-way through. My average for the first half of the century was 17.2 mph. I was having trouble with my speedometer and I only registered 43 miles for the first loop. I didn't get a chance to ask anyone else what they logged.
On the next loop some of our earlier riders went home and we picked up one new rider. There were five of us on this ride. My legs were starting to give out and I needed to get back home to meet some friends for dinner, so I returned to the truck with a total of 84 miles for the day. It was my longest ride of the year and was pretty tired after the ride. I know I need to do many more of these longer rides to build up some endurance for my Colorado ride.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Bike Path Riding
This afternoon I was in Davenport and took my bike. I rode the Duck Creek Bike Path and did a loop that gave me 21.5 miles. Temps were in the low 50's and there were a lot of walker, joggers and bikers out enjoying the sunny day.
Yesterday I was going to ride with our club on our Tuesday night ride, but the weather cooled down to 43 and there was a 25+ mph southwest wind that discouraged me. So I spent an hour on my trainer inside the house. I was hoping by this date I would be doing all my riding outside, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.
I took this picture at the west end of the Duck Creek path where it runs adjacent to Emeis Golf Coarse.
Yesterday I was going to ride with our club on our Tuesday night ride, but the weather cooled down to 43 and there was a 25+ mph southwest wind that discouraged me. So I spent an hour on my trainer inside the house. I was hoping by this date I would be doing all my riding outside, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.
I took this picture at the west end of the Duck Creek path where it runs adjacent to Emeis Golf Coarse.
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