You know you're getting famous when........

Annapolis Bicycle Racing Team - Team Latitude has been racing with all guns blazing this season and have been creating havoc all over the Mid-Atlantic area. As a result the team begins to get more exposure in the local media (see post of May 12th) and some riders even get singled out for interviews.....

One such rider, Lance Lacy, he of the Church Creek 4-man Team Trial Cat 3/4 winning team (along with myself and Steve Owens) :-), has been the subject of a few interviews this year including a forthcoming one-on-one with districtcycling.com.

Before the publication of that interview however, he was subject of another interview, which he claims is a "spoof" but the rest of us at ABRT haven't been convinced.......check it out at Kyle Jones - Pedal'n Around Lock up your wives and mini-golf putters!

80 degrees at 6AM........

Wow....is all I can say after my 1-hour run this morning! I headed out at 6AM to get a run in before work and quickly decided that swimming in the morning is the better option. Listening to the local news radio while running, the weatherman stated it was 80 degrees and high humidity....IT WAS 6AM! The run was bit of a struggle as well, not only was it hot and humid, it was with an empty stomach and not exactly the best of preparation from the night before....

I think I must have jinxed myself in my last post regarding meeting the key workouts for the week. Tuesday's workouts were hit dead on but then Wednesday's long evening run was shortened when I worked later than expected (or wanted!). Thursday was a complete wash-out and therefore was an unscheduled rest-day. I should probably call it a non-exercise day as meetings and public hearings got me home at 10:00PM (and in bed at 10:30PM, who says we don't live an exciting life!).

And that brings me to how nutrition plays such a huge part in the training/racing and overall lifestyle of triathlon (and I guess it should be life in general). As I mentioned earlier my run this morning was bit of a struggle and yes I did run without first having breakfast but it was primarily due to not being able to prepare correctly the night before.

Typically Sarah and I have dinner at about 8:30PM (after training) and then an hour before bed will have a "dessert" such as fruit, pretzel, yogurt etc. That generally sets me up for a morning workout and if swimming I will eat a couple of slices of raisin bread on the way to the pool. In recent weeks we have made a more conscious effort to limit added sugar in our diet and it appears, so far, to be having a positive effect. I feel as though I have a more constant energy level rather than having peak/troughs throughout the day and certainly do not find myself looking through the cupboards for "treats" as much as I was. I'm sure the long-term benefits will have a much greater effect on both training and health in general, even if it does mean that we spend twice as much time in the grocery store looking at the nutrition labels!

With the heat of the Mid-Atlantic upon us for the summer season, we can't do without a weekly trip to Rita's for some frozen custard and that is the sugary treat for the week....that's what gets you through a 95 degree 5-hour bike ride, knowing a vanilla/chocolate twist frozen custard with caramel is waiting for you later in the day :)

Back to the Grind.....

Without a race until the Colonial Beach Olympic Triathlon on July 13th and now recovered from Eagleman, it is back to the training grind and preparing for ChesapeakeMan in September. As promised I had a stacked cycling weekend with a 70 mile club ride on Saturday followed by the first solo century of the year on Sunday.

The century was great. After the first few miles of the legs screaming "I thought we were done with all this after yesterday!" they settled in and propelled me round the country roads of Maryland. The route I chose was cool as well, I took in a number of roads and tiny coastal villages that I hadn't been to in a while and wished that I had taken the camera to show how nice the views are of the Chesapeake Bay. Next time.....

So with a good weekend behind me it is into the work week and trying to make sure the key workouts get done.....tonight is the main brick of the week, a strong club ride and a fast 10km straight after! That's something to look forward to :-)

May 2008 - Training Summary

Bit late for this training update for May, as we are almost through June!. Here are my training stats for May 2008.

May turned out to be a great month is terms of training and results. I raced three times and got course PR's at two races, including a 4hr 12min half-ironman at the Devilman race. Due to the races, a taper week and a transition week, the training numbers weren't as large as April. As they say though, quality not quantity! The main focus was to make sure that I got the key workouts in, which were the long ride, long run and the threshold brick. The temperatures and humidity have also been rising so race/training nutrition has also been a key factor to work on. Here are the numbers in the log from May 2008:

Total Workouts - 55 including
22 cycle sessions
16 run sessions
13 swim sessions
(9 bricks) and 3 races (Duathlon Nationals, Devilman Half-Ironman and Columbia)


Total Time - 68 Hours 24 Mins (13 Hours 41 Mins Weekly Average)

Cycling Time - 39 Hours 07 Mins (7hrs 49mins weekly average)
Running Time - 15 Hours 33 Mins (3hrs 07mins weekly average)
Swimming Time - 13 Hours 36 Mins (2hrs 43mins weekly average)

Total Mileage - 944.1 Miles

Cycling Mileage - 775.66 Miles
Running Mileage - 142.36 Miles
Swimming Mileage - 26.06 Miles

As I stated May was split up into a few different kinds of weeks....I tapered prior to Devilman and then had a transition week after that, which left three weeks of high volume.

June brings the key race of the first half of the year on June 8th at Eagleman 70.3, we all know how epic that race was now :-)

All Aboard.......

The Ironman train is leaving and I'm on it. Now that Eagleman has passed, it is onto the next phase of the season, which is ChesapeakeMan on September 27th. Not an official Ironman event but a well-run independent "Ultra-distance triathlon" (still 140.6 miles).

The training will now change to focus on longer distance workouts, particularly on the bike. The first 100-miler of the year is planned for Sunday and that will be off the back of the ABRT club ride on Saturday....nothing like jumping in at the deep end!

You can never really count on anything in an Ironman but going into this training phase and based upon results so far this season, I would love to go for a sub-10 hour race. My first (and only) Ironman was in 2006 at Ironman Florida and I went 10hrs 43mins....somehow I need to shave off 43mins :)

Let the suffering begin.......

Church Creek Time Trial Race Report

After a very leisurely week post-Eagleman I still wasn't ready for the 40km time trial and I was doing two of them only 15mins apart! Due to scheduling I was racing the individual at 9:44AM and then our 4-Man race was off at 11:02AM....and we only had 3 of the 4 men!

My neck and back were still sore from straining them the few days before Eagleman (I am investigating sports massages now!) and so I knew that with the recovery still on-going, it would be a hard race. Last year at this race I went under the hour in the individual but I knew that would be a tough ask on Saturday.

With a 9:44AM start time, it meant another early wake-up call for Team Banks and yet another trip over to Cambridge on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Church Creek Time Trial takes place on much of the same roads as Eagleman and this is only the 2nd of four races that I will be doing over there during the course of the summer.

From the get-go I wasn't really feeling it and the headwind on the first part of the course didn't help much. I managed to pass a couple of guys ahead of me but at about the half-way point the guy starting 30secs behind me passed and I did all I could to try and keep him within a reasonable distance. Fortunately the last 7 miles were with a tailwind and I could claw back some time lost on the first part of the course. Cranking it up on the last few miles was great but didn't get down under the hour and I finished just over in 1hr 1min 24secs.....we will have to work on that for August when the State Championships are on the same course!



Just a mere 15minutes later I was again rushing to the start line with Steve and Lance for the start of the 4-Man TTT. To say that I wasn't exactly feeling like doing another 40km would be an understatement especially combined with the fact that Lance was fresh as a daisy and ready to hammer....as a saving grace Steve had also just finished his ITT! As expected Lance went off hammering and leaving us in his wake, he finally looked back and realized we weren't on his wheel and tapered back!

I just about managed to hang on around the course and limited my pulls, leaving Lance to drag us round! We did have Team Banks following us around the course like our own team car, Dad hanging out the window filming and Sarah doing the driving.....the only thing missing was someone shouting "faster, faster" out the window with a megaphone a la Johan Bruynell!

By the end everyone was hanging on as Lance's hamstrings were not used to the position of the borrowed time trial bike he was riding :-) Luckily we did all finish together, just over the hour and being the only team in the Cat 3/4 TTT we took home first place and the prize money....first prize money I have ever received so it wasn't all bad.

Although I was well and truly hammered after the two races, it is certainly a great workout as there are not many opportunities to get 80km of riding at a consistent 24MPH+.....hopefully by August I will be be back without the sore neck/back and on fresher legs!

So What Now........

The plan for the season was to focus on Eagleman 70.3M and try and qualify for Kona. Well they didn't quite go as planned and so we are now onto the fallback situation, which is to race at the ChesapeakeMan Ultra Distance Triathlon (an independent Ironman race) and then head down to the 70.3M World Championships in November.

The ChesapeakeMan race is a local race that takes place on pretty much the same roads as Eagleman and is run by the Tri Columbia group. This year the race is on Saturday September 27th and so I have about 100 days to get into full Ironman mode....it should be a good race, I have the fitness and just need to tailor it to the Ironman distance. It should also be different to race an independent Ironman where the numbers of racers and spectators are considerably lower (I think about 350 raced last year....should be no drafting issues then!) than at the WTC events.

In the meantime this week has been a total recovery week after the efforts of Sunday. I don't think my body has been this "busted" since Ironman Florida in 2006. I'm sure that pushing our bodies that hard won't be good for us in the long-term especially on the kidneys which suffer badly in long-distance races.....I guess only time will tell!

Hopefully the body will be recovered in time for the Church Creek 40km Time Trial this Saturday. This is an event run by our club (ABRT) and I am in for the individual time trial as well as 4-man team trial, so it should be a good day as it was last year. Team Banks are still on vacation with us and will be buzzing around the course, no doubt with my dad hanging out of the car trying to get the best vantage points from which to film!

Eagleman 2008 Race Report - Hell on Earth Edition

The 2008 edition of the Eagleman 70.3M is in the books and will go down as one of the most brutal in race history. The weather forecast was spot on and the temperatures hit the mid 90's with the heat index way over 100....just the weather for a shadeless bike and run!

For me the weekend didn't start too well as I awoke on Saturday morning with a strained neck and could just about turn my head when I was speaking to people....not the ideal scenario when you need to bring your 'A' game to your 'A' race. Fortunately, with the aid of some painkillers and copious amounts of stretching the neck was not so bad by the time Sunday morning came around and didn't factor into my race.

As many of you are probably aware by now, Saturdays generally follow the exact same format for me prior to races and this Saturday was no different except the drive to the race was slightly shorter. After registration, we checked into the hotel, watched Big Brown lose the Triple Crown bid and headed out for dinner in Easton. All the while I was maintaining my fluid levels and as a result making multiple trips to the restrooms! Going to bed at 10PM the temperatures were still in the 80's...race day was going to be HOT!

And hot it was, even when we awoke at 4:30AM it was in the 70's. My race start was 7:08AM and we were the 4th wave of the day, we would be out front with the majority of people chasing after us! The water was just about wetsuit legal (for us amateurs, for the pro's it was a non-wetsuit swim) and as race director Robert Vigorito stated it was like a bath tub. The time seemed to fly by and after saying goodbye to Team Banks, I was in the bath tub and with only a few minutes until the start...would a trip to Hawaii be in the picture by the end of the day!



The swim started well, the water was calm and it was surprisingly not very aggressive in terms of getting hit/kicked/slapped etc. The neck fortunately was not causing me any problems and before long we were catching up with the previous waves. It was an odd swim really and I think that it must have been due to the currents in the Choptank River. The 'out' and 'across' leg seemed to take an age before we hit the final 'in' leg but yet we didn't seem to get much help from the current! I got out of the water in just over 30mins and wasn't exactly too pleased with that...Luckily Sarah had been counting the age group out of the water and I was out in 23th place. Not quite as bad as I had thought but some work to do to get anywhere near where I wanted/needed to be.



The bike started well and I was pushing along at 24-25MPH and passing plenty of people in the earlier waves and before long the road was becoming lonely with the field being pretty well spread. After about 40mins though, a nagging wind begun to kick in and I seemingly lost the 'snap, crackle & pop' that I had earlier and the rest of the ride became a bit of a struggle. For the first time in a long time my back started to stiffen up, which could well have been a side effect of the strained neck and I had to keep stretching. It wasn't all bad though as only a few guys from the later wave had passed me and I had maintained a positive gain of riders in my own age-group. I knew I wasn't going well but was hoping that everyone else was in the same boat and I realised that the run was going to the key to the whole race, especially with the temperatures and humidity rising as the day went on.

Finally coming off the bike I had a 2hrs 26mins split, slower than last year (by about 90 secs) and I wasn't in the best frame of mind as I ran out of transition. Sarah shouted that I was in 14th position (after making up 3 places in transition!) and asked how the bike had gone...I wasn't my usual happy self and responded with a grumpy shrug (and for that I am sorry, I didn't mean to be rude). I was now where I wanted to be, on the run and chasing people down. Within the first two miles I had climbed into 10th place and tried to keep the pace up at 6:25 min/miles, which is slow by usual standards but the heat was amazing! I was putting ice everywhere, under the cap, down the top, carrying it in my hands (which really does help to cool you down). The water stops gradually seemed to be getting further and further apart (they weren't, it just seemed like it!) and by mile 4 there were more than a few people just walking along....it was becoming a matter of finishing rather than racing.



With the run being a pure battle of attrition I knew that if only I could keep moving and not give in to the urge to walk, I could probably gain a number of places. By the turnaround I was into 9th place but runners in front were few and far between......I was running water stop to water stop and was making sure to carry a cup of iced water between stops and that was a huge help. Just by keeping moving I was able to run at about 7:20min/miles. It was odd in that suddenly you would see runners ahead after not seeing them in the distance and then pass them as they either walked or slowly made their way to the finish.....coming into the final 2 miles I had just passed into 7th place and that is where I would stay until the end. A finishing time of 4hrs 36mins....not exactly a day for a PR!. I have never been so pleased to see the finish line, I had somehow managed a 1hr 35min run, the 3rd fastest in the age group and had put myself in with a shot of a Kona slot should they begin rolling down!


[Sarah was so excited to see me come round the corner that my mum can be heard in the background hoping that I knew where I placed and not getting hopes up that I was close to the top 2 spots!....I knew I wasn't :-)]

Standing under the water hose at the finish was so good and after a day of many mixed emotions it was great to end up 7th Age Group and 40th Overall (last year I was 96th overall). Watching people come into the finish though, I have never seen so many people needing IVs or medical attention......this race course is usually tough but on Sunday the weather made it into a day that will be talked about for years.

After recovering and changing, it was time to see if the Kona slots would roll down! Last year the 2nd slot rolled down to 9th. Unfortunately the two slots available were taken by the first two in our age group and so there will be no visit to the Big Island for Team Banks in 2008! We'll be back to try for 2009.....the consolation prize was a slot at the 70.3M World Championships in Clearwater so we will be back down in Florida in November (and besides I have some unfinished business at that race after a poor run last year).

In other Eagleman news, ABRT teammate Kerri Robbins had an amazing race to win her age group. She declined the Kona slot however. Other races conflict with Kona for Kerri and when that race happens to be the World Duathlon Championships where she is reigning World Champion it is hugely understandable...and besides I am certain that Kerri will again win a chance to visit the Big Island!

Eagleman - Where's the race report?

Trust me the race report is coming and I will get it up tomorrow. In short the race was complete carnage and it was a truly epic day for everyone......temperatures soared into the mid-90's from the get-go and it was a battle of attrition. Details (and knowing me it will be excruciatingly detailed!) will come tomorrow with photos and video.

This will be interesting.......

Just in time for the race on Sunday, Maryland is under the first "heatwave" of the year and temperatures are expected to soar into the 90's for the race.

(Click for larger image)

Now, during the summer this wouldn't necessarily be as much of a problem as it will be on Sunday, as most athletes would have been acclimatized for at least a few weeks....but this is the first real heat of the year and everyone has been enjoying the 60's and 70's. I guess on the bright side it could be windy as hell....pick your poison heat or wind!

The final tapering has gone well. The good luck charms are in place and just a few more need to be done. The list of good luck charms started this year after the Devilman race where a PR was posted! It's only a small list but it was continued through the Columbia race, which also led to a course PR

1) Attend a Bowie Baysox game in the week prior to the race (Went last night and they won in the bottom of the 10th!).

2) Watch the appropriate race of the Triple Crown.....this Saturday is the Belmont Stakes (The Derby was Devilman and The Preakness was Columbia).

3) Eat a Blueberry Crisp Clif Bar on race morning.

4) Stop off at WAWA for a Mocha Mint Iced Coffee (fortunately there is a WAWA on the way to the Eastern Shore).

5) Sharpen up on my Alaskan Crab catching techniques by watching "The Deadliest Catch" the night before the race (This is always on Discovery Channel on Saturday nights so no problem there!).

So there we have it, the keys for success! Follow them and everything else is a piece of cake :-)

I can't wait for race day now and I feel like a bull in the stall, just waiting to UNLEASH THE FURY!

What's with all this Tapering!......

Since Friday its been taper time in the Banks household, even Sarah uses it as a good excuse to do less running! After all she needs to prep for the race as well, esp. with the Team Banks parents being in tow (What top is he wearing?, this is him...no it's not!, he should be through by now, perhaps he has had a puncture!)

So yesterday I was hoping for a nice leisurely club ride and perhaps just a few intense pick-ups to get the legs going.....well when I turned up I knew that a "leisurely" ride probably wouldn't be the order of the day! The group was strong and with no road races at the weekend, everyone was ready to hammer from the get-go!

It certainly was a fast ride and arriving back at home, the entirety of the ride including the warm-up (from home to the ride), club ride, and warm-down (from ride to home) was a season best and 6 minutes quicker than the fastest so far! Not bad for a ride just over 2 hours......Fortunately I felt good and the legs weren't blasted too much! You always know it's a good ride when you finish and someone shouts "Thanks for that, I almost threw up!"

Besides the ride yesterday, the taper has been going well, more time on my hands meant that the bike got a clean and I got another 1/2 an hour in bed this morning before heading down to the pool. Although in a freaky/stalker kind of way someone recognized me after wondering if I swam competitively, asking my name and stating that they knew my name from the triathlon race results.......[they do triathlons as well and will be at Eagleman this weekend!...see told you stalker alert :-)]

Just a quick update on the status of Team Banks....they are currently up in Gettysburg looking at the Civil War stuff and the grass at Chez Banks is getting long. I think they are shirking their responsibilities ;-(

The Final Countdown......yep its Eagleman week!

Finally taper time has arrived and we are into the final countdown to Eagleman....the first "A" race of the year and the time to let everything hang out. We have 6 days to go, the taper started on Thursday with workouts being shorter but maintaining some of the same intensity to keep sharp.

The World Championship slots have now been tentatively allocated with our age group (30-34) having 2 for the Ironman Worlds and 3 for the 70.3 Worlds....to get these is going to be one tough fight! Obviously the slots may change on race day depending on how many start in each age-group, we may get more, we may get less! Lets hope for the former.

The weekend was nice and relaxing. Saturday was extremely lazy after a morning ride and then watching the Giro while the rain outside made the garden look like a swimming pool. After a leisurely dinner at a local restaurant we all lounged on the sofa and watched the film "300"...now if those guys aren't on "roids" I don't know who is!

On Sunday, after a leisurely hour on the bike, it was off to Arlington, VA to watch the CSC Invitational bike race, which features some of the best pro's in the US as well as the European squads of CSC, Slipstream and Team High Road. As always the sun was blazingly hot and Magnus Backstedt and Roger Hammond amongst others made for a great race. As is tradition we also made our yearly visit to the Cheesecake Factory and despite prepping for Eagleman I couldn't resist the opportunity for some Kahlua Cocoa Coffee Cheesecake!



As the week goes on I will try to share more of the build-up to the race....I don't think I have ever trained so much for a single race ever, not even Ironman Florida in 2006 so it literally will have to be KONA OR BUST!