The Latest Triathlon, etc.

I didn't really let anybody know ahead of time, but today I ran my latest triathlon. It was a Olympic distance race here on O'ahu, across the island over at Kapiolani Park (near Waikiki). It was a quality endeavour, to be sure! I really had a good race (no, I didn't take home any hardware - at least, not that I know of). I felt really good, very strong. The official results are not posted yet, but once they are, you can see them here (scroll down to July 2006; it's the Tinman triathlon).

My recap of the race:

Swim: started ~0545, and the sun wasn't quite up yet. I was concerned that we would be swimming in the dark! To add to this, I have tinted swim goggles, which made it seem even darker. Fortunately, there were some "technical difficulties" that delayed the start about 5 minutes, which was just about enough time to get a little bit of light in the sky. Besides, I am never going to be the guy out in front of the pack on the swim, so I guess it's not critically important that I can see where I am going! I just follow the people ahead of me! I was out of the water in about 15 minutes, a pretty good swim for me (it was 750 meters long).

Bike: I felt that I had a fairly quick transition to the bike and it only took me about 10 minutes to get into a good rhythm. I downed a PowerGel and had some Gatorade. The course went east out to Hawaii Kai (against the tradewinds, which is good - they were behind me on the way back in to the transition area) and up a killer hill right before the turnaround point. I averaged almost 20 mph to the base of the hill and was at just over a 19 mph average when I got to the turnaround. I was consistently clocking 23+ mph on the mostly flat course back in to Waikiki, and when I finished I had an overall average speed of ~20.5 mph. I was hoping to average at least 20 mph on the bike today, so that was a good showing! The ride was 40k (just under 25 miles) and I wanted to do it in 1 hour 15 minutes or less. I accomplished that today.

Run: It took about 10 minutes to get my legs to feel decent for running off the bike, and there was a pretty good uphill grade for probably 1.5 - 2 miles on the first half of the run, climbing up and around Diamond Head crater. I got into a good rhythm once again and tried to push myself to catch the runners I saw in front of me. I pushed a good pace back up and over Diamond Head on the way to the finish and came across the finish line in 2:13:46 (unofficial - this is the time on my watch), feeling good and asking myself if that was it - wasn't there more to the race? This was a 10k (6.2 mile) run. My goal was 45 minutes or less; I think that according to my watch I did it in about 43.

Maybe I am starting to see some of the payoff for all the training I have done this year. I am sore now writing this several hours after the finish, but I felt fine earlier. Maybe it's because my last race (the Honu Half Ironman) was approximately twice as long as this one. Well, whatever it is, I like it! In a few days I might have some race photos to post here to go along with this.

Hmmm, let's see, what else is going on? There are some rock shows of coming up out here next month. Tool is coming to town. I will not be there. I will be here on-island when the shows are taking place. However, I was slow on the uptake in buying tickets. Now, there are none left. Two shows, both sold out. Darn. Tool is a good time, right Dave? Maybe I can dig up a spare ticket somewhere in the next few weeks...

Later in the year, U2 is playing here. Pearl Jam is opening for them. Since when does Pearl Jam open shows? The Cone? When? I would think their days of doing that were long past! Won't be going to that one either. Probably won't be here when that one goes on.

This upcoming week is the last one of my current graduate school class. It has been a good experience; I have learned lots! The professor, Allan R. Millett (see his bio here), has been great. Truly a wealth of knowledge, lots of relevant stories, and he seems to know personally just about everybody in the high echelons of the military and government. Unfortunately, I will not be able to take any classes this fall nor in the spring, so it will likely be a year before I am able to continue my graduate education. That is depressing, but it's the way it is. I have to live with it.

John is growing like a champ. Not sure what he's weighing nowadays but should know this week (he's got a check-up on Tuesday). I'm not sure if it's possible, but the little guy seems to get cuter and cuter by the day! New pictures will be posted soon, I promise!

Last for tonight, Grandma and Grandpa Sampson are coming to visit this week and next. I'm sure John is just going to blow them away! It seems like he is gaining new abilities every day, from holding up his head on his own, to holding up his full weight in a standing position (obviously he needs lots of help with the balance part) to scooting across the floor on his tummy if you brace his feet so he can push. Amazing!

Of Book Reviews and Blogs

I have mentioned in past posts that I am taking a class right now, on the Korean War. I have the first product of said class for your viewing pleasure today, it's a book review I wrote and you can see it here on Amazon.com, posted exactly as it was submitted for grading. Is it perfect? Certainly not. But it's not bad, particularly in comparison with its' "competition;" the submissions of the other students in the class. How do I know about them? I had to read all of them! In fact, we all had to read everyone else's review and critique them. We, in turn, are graded on our ability to critique the reviews of others. Not a bad idea at all! Anyhow, as I read some of the other reviews, I realized that mine was pretty good! Probably not the best in the class; there were some really good ones! But better than many, most perhaps. I must admit, I am a tad biased towards myself. I think that I write pretty well, most of the time. Some other people think that I do, too. After class tomorrow I will know what the instructor thinks of how I write, and then, next week, perhaps if my fellow classmates judged my review to be either one of the two best or two worst they read, then I will also know what they thought of my review! (We submit only the two reviews we thought the best and the two we rated as the worst to the professor for review of our critiquing; those will then be returned to us next week. Like I said, a rather ingenious regime that will allow many in the class to receive much feedback on their work!)

If I have time later I will write about my car. Off to study! The midterm exam is tomorrow!

Rock Show

It's come to my attention that it has been a while since I've posted anything here. That's plainly true. I've been a bit busy. Please accept my apologies and read on!

So I went to a rock show this evening. Staind, a rock band, was playing. This was a notable event for 2 reasons. First, I walked to and from the event. No, I don't mean that I drove to someplace, parked far away, and then walked. I mean that I left my house, walked briskly for about 30 minutes, and I was at the venue. The show was on base! There's this big "fest" going on called, oddly enough, Bayfest (the link is here). There are bands every night for 5 nights. Tonight was Staind. They put on a good show. Going to their show made me aware of some gaps in my record collection, namely their last 2 records. Luckily, in this day and age, I can remedy that right now! iTunes, here I come! Don't think that I forgot about mentioning the second reason that this concert was a notable event. The second reason is that now there is one less band that I have to see at some point in my life. I have had several "near-miss" occasions where I almost saw Staind live but it didn't work out, but that is no longer the case. There really aren't that many bands on the list anymore. In fact, the only one I can think of right now of fthe top of my head is Slipknot. I'm sure there are more, but not a whole lot more. I have seen most of the biggies.

I have been going to school for a few weeks now. Graduate school is demanding! There is a lot of reading and writing (go figure). Good thing I like those things. There are about 4 weeks left in the summer session.

I am training in preparation for a half marathon on October 1. I know, I know, I just did a half Ironman race, how is a plain old half marathon going to measure up to that? Well, quantitatively, it's not going to, plain as that. Qualitatively, I think that if I train properly and consistently, I could very well be looking at a new PR (that's personal record for you non-runner types out there) for that distance. The training plan that I started on this week will take me right up to the race. I have also "impressed" many of the Marines in my platoon to give it a go, too. They are going to be following a much simpler plan that I am, but that's OK, and it makes a lot of sense - they are all going to be doing their first half marathon. Me, I've been doing these events for a few years now and am ready for a bit more advanced training plan. Besides, I don't think they would want to try the plan that I am on - it's challenging! I ran nearly 30 miles on it this week, probably my biggest week of running in at least 2 years!

There is more to write about but it will have to wait at least until tomorrow. It's rack time!