First Open Water Swim

With only a few weeks to my first triathlon it was time to try open water swimming for the first time.

I have never been afraid of water and can go pretty deep when swimming in the beautiful dark blue Adriatic Sea....but swimming in reservoir or pond is a little different.
1. Color. Its not dark blue like the Adriatic Sea but semi dark brown...
2. Temperature. Not as nice as the Adriatic Sea...but with a wet suit very doable...
3. Visibility. Hmmm.....what visibility....its semi dark brown...you don't see a finger in front of your face!
4. Animals. Another hmmmm......I really don't want to know
5. Taste. Not salty that's for sure!

Anyway, the day has come when my swimming/triathlon buddies decided to open the 2011 open water swimming. Doc Dennis was the organizer, but never showed up (I think he was kitesurfing as the wind was quite strong)...so it was Martien and Wim...the brave ones!

When we arrived at the Ouderkerker Plas (very close to the Ajax Stadium), I asked the question: Are you serious? They both looked at me and said yes....get on the wet suit and let's go.

Next was getting the wet suit on, which I have to say went very smooth unlike when I was in the store trying it on. Not sure why it want to smooth this time.

Martien was the bravest one and was first in the water, Wim was not far after her....and I went in third. A straight jump in the water and I found myself in lots of semi dark brown water.....lots of it!

We decided to make a 1km loop always stay together in a group and wait for each other at the mid point buoy.

Off we went....and I have to say...it was GREAT! The scenery was excellent.....sun was shining, it was very nice conditions for my first open water swim.

What I first noticed is how good the wet suit was. It really kept me afloat making swimming easier. Also, it kept me warm! I estimate the water temperature to have been some 17C. At no point in time during the whole swim did I feel cold. Great wet suit made by 2XU, its the 2010 model V:1.

The biggest difference from swimming in the open water compared to the pool is your orientation....every few strokes you need to get the head out of the water to orientate...see if you are still going in the right direction! Open water current and wind hinder the orientation also.

Anyway, after some 24 minutes, including a brief brake at the buoy, we were back.

It was very nice and now I am looking forward to doing it again in the coming weeks!

You can see the GPS log of the swim. I used the Garmin 310XT under my swim cap to get the GPS signal.

...not sure about the 81 calories...as I was not wearing my HRM.

And here come some iPhone images....

Thanks Martien and Wim!

10km Poelster Bosloop - new PB

Last year I took photos of this run, and decided that this year I would run it.

Poelster Bosloop....always taking place on the Easter Monday. This year marking the 42nd edition of the run. There are 1.7km (kids), 5km, 10km, and 10 miles runs on offer. I decided to go for the 10km.
The beauty of the run is that you don't need to sign up weeks before....but on the day itself.
Very recreational run as you only get your start number without registering your name, and without any official timing...so timing for my run was provided by the Garmin 310XT.

Start of all the races was at the north side of the Amstelvense Poel, while the 10km parcours takes you through the Amsterdamse Bos and back to the Amstelveense Poel. Here you can see the map.

Sometime last week I asked Alec, my brother in law, if he was interested in running also. At first not so sure but later decided to do it. As soon as he confirmed his run he started talking about beating my personal best....which was not very difficult as my PB on 10km is about 47:12...what I ran last week in Purmerend.
Alec, being a very good runner, and having a PB on 10km of about 35min was going to be my rabbit....

During the days before the race I had way too much to eat and was afraid to step on the weight scale....Yesterday BBQ at Iva and Alec's, the day before plenty to eat at home....all in all way too much. I hope I can still fit my wet suit....so todays expectation were not high, I would even be happy with 48min.

Weather was good. Sun. Temperature high for end April....I estimate some 24C.

Race started and we were off....starting in the middle of the pack, we had to over take a few runners to get at our (read mine) ideal pace of about 4:30 per km. We managed to keep it for the first 5km without any issues.
Later on it began to be a little tougher but we still managed to keep the same pace. At about 7th km we encountered a small "uphill" stage.....yes...you may think...hills in Amsterdamse Bos....well yes...enough to feel in your legs that you are going uphill....luckily it only lasted some 300m....

During the whole race we passed many people, while only 2-3 people passed us....but the most remarkable passing was of a what I estimate a young kid that was maybe 8 years old....he started same time as we did, but managed to be in front of us until km 8....great kid that will certainly develop into a great runner!

At km 8-9 pace dropped a little, but Alec was pushing and I tried to follow.....which worked pretty well and somehow I got extra energy going into the final 1000 meters....running far above the 4:30 pace finishing the race in my new PB of 45:65.

Honestly, I am not sure if I would have been able to do this without Alec...so a big thanks to him!

Great race. Great result...that will be hard to beat in the coming months for sure...and certainly during the 1/4 and OD triathlons.

Some race data:
GPS track
Distance: 10.05km
Time: 45:56
Average pace 4:34 per km
Average HR 168

Lastly, thanks to the Poelster organization and many voulenteers for making this race possible.

Thanks for reading!

RP Martin SwimRun Purmerend

Time has come to do something different, try to swim and run, so kind of like triathlon but then without the bike in between.

Looking at the events calendar I found a few swim runs in the neighborhood, but finally decided for Purmerend race due to my Twitter pal Mark. Two distances were on offer, short and long. I chose for the long which meant a 1000m swim, and 10km run. Should be interesting.

So far, the only swimming result I have is a 10min session when I managed to swim 550m early February at the indoor triathlon in Amstelveen. Since then I managed to swim two/three times a week, for about 3:00 every week. Once really technical training, then condition and third with lots of swimming.

On the running side, my only official score from many years back on 10km was around 53min. Don't remember anymore what the actual time was. However, last week during a training I managed to run a first sub 50min 10km at 49:51....which gave me good confidence.

Having said all this, here come the targets for today:
Swim 1km     20min
Run 10km      50min
Transition       2min
Total time       1:12...which I initially rounded up to 1:15, but was secretly hoping for 1:10!!!

Not sure why, but when I woke up this morning I was quite nervous. I could not explain why, but maybe it had to do with the fact that I had to competitively swim 1km for the first time in my life in one go....and then also run 10km. In any case it was healthy nervousness.

What to wear for such an event was also something I was not 100% sure about....but in the end went for a 2XU endurance tri-suit that you will see in the photos.

Some 2 hours before the start together with my supporters, Ksenija, Matteo and my dad, I was off to Purmerend. Franca was on a local play fair while my mom is in Zagreb.
Arriving at the swimming complex, the only thing I could say was wow! A very nice swimming pool, I just wish we would have something like that in Amstelveen.

Weather was nice, good temperature of some 17C, and very shy wind, so great conditions for the race.

My legs felt very heavy, so as a pre race warm up I went for a quick very slow pace run in order to try and relax the leg muscles which worked fine, thereafter a small swim warm up and it was time to put the white cap on, and get in the battle.

My supporters were ready (and Ksenija thankfully behind the camera)

I was ready....or as ready as I can be...

On paper I was among the bottom 3 swimmers of the competition with my 20min prediction, and therefore was assigned lane 1 which was nicely wide and only shared with 2 additional athletes.

Race started, and I was off strong. I think I felt the difference of swimming in a tri-suit vs just tri shorts. Just felt faster....great. I lost count at some 18 laps I did....while I needed to do 40. Swimming went smooth, and it felt good.

Luckily the person responsible for counting laps alerted me at lap 38 that I only had 2 more to go, so it was full steam ahead for the last 50m, and then out of the pool, and into the transition area.

Transition was quick. Drying my feet, putting the running shoes on, lacing them up (yes, I still don't have the fast tri laces), and putting the number belt around my waist which proved to be more difficult than anticipated.
One BIG mistake I did....I didn't put the socks on which later will prove to be a big setback. I didn't put them on as I wanted to win some time as putting sock on wet feet could also take a while.

Anyway, run started well. As agreed Matteo waited for me outside where the run would start handing me my Garmin 310XT that was already locked with satellites so was ready to be used immediately. Thanks Matteo!!!!

Run course was a little shorter than planned. Two laps of 4.8km, making it a total of 9.6km.
First 4km went well, I even managed to over take 2 people that were faster in swimming.
At the end of first lap I started to feel the impact of having no socks....I got blisters on both of my big toes which was not pleasant! I guess I will be looking for some new running shoes...
Towards the km 6 my left hamstring muscle started to slowly cramp. Nothing serious but it started to feel heavy.
Overall pace was good, in the beginning i was running at about 5min/km, while later for the last 3km's I tried running faster at 4:30 min/km. During the whole run my HR was quite good, in beginning around 165 but then it stabilized to about 156-160 which was great.
Finished the 9.6km run in excellent 47....

Overall result of 1:06:41 which was far below my expectations. Yes!!!
17th position out of 25 starters!

Here come the official results:
Swim           17:58
Transition    1:31
Run              47:12
Total            1:06:41

Run GPS track
distance 9.66km
average pace 4:53 min/km = 12.3 km/h
average HR 161

Thanks to the supporters....and my darling wife Ksenija for making excellent photos!

Overall a great experience. Excellent result for me.
A nice and very enjoyable small event that I would recommend to everyone. Organization was great, and with this I would like to THANK organizers as well as all volunteers for their contribution and making the event a success!

Tijdstrijderscup Almere - Time Trial 40.8km

Today was the day when I got to race on my bike for the first time in my life....Tijdstrijderscup.

Just to set some context to this whole experience....I have never competitively raced on a bike. To date I did less than 750km on a bike; race bike or TT bike...so you can say I am a complete newbie.
Aero position on bike? Well, on my Tacx I managed a few sets of 4 minutes and had to rest afterwards, so generally speaking not really aero position yet.

Some 10 days back I received a mail asking if I would like to take some time trail photos of a competition in Almere. Sports photography (see my website) is my other hobby that is taking some rest at the moment. As the triathlon madness is currently raging through my head, I replied to the email that I would rather be on the other side of the lens and would rather compete in the race myself, and so I entered the competition.

I kind of know what time trial (TT) is....but how do you race in TT? What is the tactics? Do I have all the right equipment?

I have been reading a lots of things about aerodynamics in many triathlon magazines, and every article mentions that the best investment in aerodynamics is in the aero helmet....so I was on a quest to find one for this Sunday. There are many aero helmets on the market, but I decided to get the Lazer Tardiz, and managed to get one.
Here is the image of it:

Helmet is very comfortable, light, and I on purpose got the white one and not black as felt black one could overheat in summer with lots of sun....

My Cervelo P2 bike was ready, I only made a small adjustment with the stem, changing its length from 90mm to 80mm, but post race think I need further reduction to 70mm.
Zipp wheels were ready, nicely cleaned, and pumped to what I though was a good level of some 8bar.

Yesterday evening I started to get a little nervous about the race today. I wanted to get a good result. My target time was 1:20, while I heard I should target 1:10. So far on all of my rides I averaged 27 kmh, so even 1:20 would be a great achievement.
My second worry, always with cycling, is the fear of falling and kissing the tarmac. Looking at the pro riders, and how they fall, and what they break is not the most comforting thought for a beginner in road cycling races. Anyway, I managed to convince myself that in TT racing as there aren't many people around you it would be a little easier to stay on the bike.

Sunday morning came and the good and very natural nervousness was still there. Nothing wrong with that. Weight this morning....88.2kg. Lowest since I can remember....which is now -38.4kg in one year.

Breakfast done, bike and all other equipment was packed in the car, and I was off. Arriving in Almere well ahead of time, and picking up my start number.....13. My first race, and I really didn't want a number 13 but thats what it was.
In TT races each rider starts every 30 seconds. My start time was set to 11:03:30, and after some warm up I was at the start, and off I was!

Tactics for today? Well, start slow with heart rate of up to 150ish, and after some 30km, take it up and see how fast I can go.

Parcours, is pretty flat all on normal road where normal cars would be riding but as we were in the polder and it was sunday morning not many cars actually came by.

As the wind was almost non existent it felt like we had head wind all the time. However in the first 15ish km's more than last 25km....so in the beginning it was slightly tougher but very manageable. HR was good, and speed was just above 32kmh. Was going good! And above all I was very pleased about being able to hold the aero position on my TT bars.

Towards the end I geared up and was really pushing....would have been interesting to see the power in watts, but as I don't have a power meter that will be something for the future.

Last 25km's, I managed to get into 40kmh speeds, and that brought my average up. My HR was just above 160...

P2 was great, and at times I really experienced aerodynamics of the bike as I was riding fast and cutting through the wind.

According to my Garmin 800, I finished in 1:07:55. Great time, great race, me very very happy.

Organization of the race was OK. You could see that it was done on very low budget, which is OK with me. No need for big tents and sponsors every time. Results were online very quickly, which is something to applaud for. One thing that I do think organization should improve on is the number stickers. Please find a sticker that can easily be removed from the helmet....

Official result on the website states Paolo Polla in time of 1:07:58, and an overall position of 97 out of 127 that started.

GPS track
40.8km
Time: 1:07:58
average HR 157
average speed 36kmh
top speed 42.5kmh
average cadence 94

Looking back at the data, I realized that I started pushing harder a little too late. My legs did feel tired but not completely exhausted. Also I could have tried for a higher cadence towards the end bringing the higher HR which was possible. All learnings for next time.

And some photos thanks to Kaj.

All in all, a great experience. Great race, and happy about the result.

Lastly, thanks to the organization as well as volunteers for organizing this fine event.

Next week on the programme is the swim-run in Purmerend. 1km swim, and 10km run.