Monday, July 28, 2008

Mimi rocks Lake Placid!

Mimi Boyle had the race of her life last week at Ironman USA in Lake Placid. Here is the rundown of her day in her words.....

Lake Placid Ironman 2008

It’s taken me 8 years, but I finally figured out how to train for one of these. I found the perfect mix of life/work/training and finished the Lake Placid Ironman in my fastest time for the 140.6 mile distance to date. More importantly, I hardly made any sacrifices in my personal life that compromised my friends and family. That is something I have always struggled with being an endurance athlete. How to find time for personal relationships and fun while still having enough hours allotted for all 3 disciplines. I decided to take advice from my friend and business partner, Paul, to embrace the “less is more” methodology. Less long, slow workouts. More mid-distance, fast ones. It works. I still did enough long, steady miles to remind the legs what it will feel like at mile 95 on the bike and 22 on the run, but not nearly as many as years past. Throwing in 2 week-long cycling efforts (Tucson and Colorado) topped me off and made my weekly efforts back at home less stressful because I had built up solid strength and fitness. IF (and that’s a real “if”) I race long distance again, I will have the key to what works best for me. Just wish I’d found it years ago!

As far as my race in Lake Placid…I finished 10:33:57. I was 2nd in my age group, and 9th woman overall including Pro’s. Not bad for a procrastinator who was more interested in drinking wine with friends on week nights and voting for our next American Idol Superstar back in March!

My race was fairly smooth from start to finish. The weather was lousy (rained all day long, heavy at times), but we were all in the same boat, so who cares.

1:09 is a decent swim time for me considering I am too wimpy to fight the crowds and usually give up a little on the first loop until the scrum clears out. Exiting the water, I felt very calm and had my 2 good friends, Tom & Stacey, rip off my wetsuit. That was hilarious and gave me a real rush of adrenaline.

Loop 1 of the bike was very fast for me. I was on pace to bike a 5:20. Wow. Pinch me and tell me I’m not seeing the numbers wrong! Somewhere along the way between mile 65-70, I lost the use of my small chain ring. Oh well. Get over it. I managed to ride back up to town without much damage and finished holding just under a 20mph avg for the 112 mile ride for a 5:40 bike. I lost 20 min on that 2nd loop, but I was banking on losing 10min w/out mechanical issues, so I wasn’t overwhelmingly disappointed.

Onto the run, (my favorite part!!!) I felt good. I knew from mile 1 if I kept drinking and didn’t try to start speeding up too quickly, my run would be solid. I finished strong with a 3:34 marathon, and best of all, I was without pain the entire day!

Best race execution I’ve ever put together. I’m a slow learner obviously, but as the saying goes…better late than never.

Cheers,

Mimi

Mimi on the bike (this was only the 2nd time riding the bike! She took it for a brief first spin to make sure it was working ok only 2 days beofre the race!)



Onto the Run

Friday, July 25, 2008

Paul Bashforth raced in the Mack Cycle Trilogy #2 Sprint Triathlon

Paul raced in the 2nd in a series of 3 Sprint Races in Key Biscayne, Florida on July 20th. An unusually strong swim (with help from the Xterra speedsuit?? :) ) placed him towards the front of his age group for the start of the bike but a lack of aggression over the hills cost him a few places during the bike split. However, a strong 2nd best run split in his age group clawed back some of the deficit and he managed to finish up 4th out of 69 in the M35-39 Age group.

Greg Stewart Races Ironman 70.3 rhode Island

Despite some nutrition problems on the bike Greg had a strong finish placing 9th in the M30-34 age group in a time of 4:37:28

Some snapshots of Greg's in Rhode Island...







Thursday, July 24, 2008

True Motion to sponsor the inaugural Westchester Toughman Half Ironman

True-Motion is pleased to announce we'll be teaming up with The Inaugural WESTCHESTER TOUGHMAN Half Ironman as a headlining sponsor. The event, which will take place on Sept 21st at Croton Point Park in Croton, NY, will be the first 1/2 Ironman in Westchester County.
The race course features a beautiful one loop 1.2m swim in a protected cove of the Hudson river , a scenic 56m loop through upper Westchester, and a rolling 13.1m run around Croton Point Park with a scenic run through Croton on Hudson and an out/back section over the Croton Dam.
Awards to include a sizable race purse of $3500 to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, overall men and women.
For more information and to register go to www.WESTCHESTERTOUGHMAN.com
The Boomer Esiason Foundation has been selected as sole charity recipient for this event. BEF is former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason's Foundation which raises awareness and funding to beat Cystic Fibrosis, a disease that Boomer's son, Gunnar, was diagnosed with over 15 years ago . Along with raising awareness, BEF has developed a way for people to contribute through their athletic support by joining "Team Boomer", a competitive USATF registered club that helps fund the "Exercise For Life Scholarship Program" while emphasizing the importance of daily exercise especially in the lives of CF patients. The Westchester Toughman will be selling charity spots to the event through Team Boomer . For more information on how you can donate to BEF or learn more about Cystic Fibrosis, please visit www.esiason.org

Jordan Rapp races in the Big Apple

Jordan Rapp had a great performance in the NYC Triathlon on sunday July 20th. Despite a few Jelly fish stings en route to T2 Jordan blasted a very fast bike split second noly to Race winner Greg Bennett. He then reeled off a Personal Best 10k to round off a solid race and place 6th Overall in a very competitive field.

Read about Jordan's Race in his own words on his blog

The Long Run from the Swim Exit to T1



The bike



The Finish Line