First Night 5k Bethlehem PA

I first though that my last run was the Christmas City Classic 5 miles, but there was another local race - the First Night 5k I decided to jump into. Mostly because pretty good number of endurance multisport club were racing. So I took it as opportunity to see few friends before the year is over. The race is a 5k loop in Bethlehem that starts at the ice skate center in downtown and loops over the river, to Main street, down to the river, over to Sand Island for little loop and then back over the bridge to the ice skate center. Fun part about the race was that we got about 2 inches of fresh snow that morning and while it turned into slushy paddles in most areas there were spots where it was still snow that was quite slippery especially in my Newtons.

This was second run race I ran mostly by feel and looked at my watch only I think two or three times in the entire race. I ran at the pace that felt hard enough for 5k, but paid attention on the snowy patches and slowed down to almost walk as the grip in Newtons is virtually non-existent. Still I felt like I put pretty good effort and deserved all the goodness we had later in the day - all the good meats, wine and cookies.

Below is picture of the endurance multisport crew that ran the race - Jes finished second overall and Andrew has shiny new PR and he ran the race in jeans (did not plan on running it, but changed his mind at the last minute). So with this picture I wish all my club peeps great 2010 season.

What's new in WKO+ 3.0

I thought that instead of writing about my summary of 2009 and plans for 2010 I'll do something else - write about something that literally made my day in few weeks ago in 2009. I was on business trip in Europe and while running from one meeting to another I got call that my other meeting was cancelled so I sat down in one of the many coffee corners we have in that office and checked my mail. To my surprise I had new mail from TrainingPeaks that new release of WKO+ was available. Knowing that I have only few minutes I quickly checked release notes and after finding about new features I purchased upgrade and downloaded the update file. Later in the day when I was done with work I performed the upgrade and started reviewing the new features. By the way the upgrade was easy and took only about 20 minutes including migration of all my training history from past 3 years. The software itself looks very good, but I had very little time while on business trip so I postponed more detailed review until I get back home.

When I got back few days later I found invite to free WKO+ seminar led by Hunter Allen that was very helpful in helping me understand how to use the software for further analysis of the workouts. The most important enhancements in my mind are the multi-file/range analysis, scatter graphs and quadrant analysis for power files. For the end user the interface seems little cleaner and the seamless integration with TrainingPeaks logging software is a welcome enhancement - not only you can upload data to TrainingPeaks.com account, but if you load data directly to web you can download them back to WKO+. This is useful when you are on trip and do not have WKO+ available to you which happens quite often to me when I go on vacation. And last but not least enhancement is the flexible licensing that let's you use your copy of WKO+ on up to two machines - great for users that have one copy on their work computer and one on home PC or laptop.

While I like all of these features I really use the multi-range analysis and scatter graph for my run and bike workouts. I use quadrant analysis for my power files as well. Great is that you can look at scatter graph or quadrant analysis inside multi-range analysis - more about that later.

Let me demonstrate the multi-range analysis on two examples - first one is training run where after warm-up you do 10 times 30 seconds on / 1 minute off intervals where the on interval is very fast running and the 1 minute is rest jog. Purpose of this session is to work on running form that you can measure by achieved average speed and average cadence in the 'on' intervals. Once I loaded the log file to WKO+ I selected all the 'on' intervals and created multi-range analysis out of it that looks something like this.

Each variable like HR, cadence, speed is plotted in separate graph and each range has different color. Once you have the multi-range analysis in place you can use the bottom part of the screen to sort the ranges by different variables - like average speed or average cadence. From the analysis you can see that the first interval was pretty fast, but the fourth was fastest while my average cadence was pretty slow on the first one (94) and gradually improved over the subsequent intervals. The detail for cadence is below.

And detail for speed follows:

In similar fashion you can analyze longer sessions or different sessions performed on different days - like comparing your speed / pace / cadence in your tempo run or track workout. This is very useful and provides great insight into how you performed in the workout.

Now let's look at another example - this one if from ChesapeakeMan AquaVelo - well the velo part of the race - e.g. 112 miles of biking that consisted of two loops (second one being shorter). I setup multi-range analysis for the loops to evaluate how well I paced the race - e.g. did I die towards the end or was I able to keep about the same power through out the race. Were there major spikes and how did I generate the power. All these questions can be answered quite easily with WKO+. Let's look at few of the graphs from this multi-range analysis.

The first picture shows the multi-range analysis where the first loop is in yellow and second loop in red. From the power ranges below the graps you can see that pacing was pretty good - +/-5 watts in power and +/-3 watts in normalized power. That is what I was aiming for.

Now let's look at how I generated that power - this is what quadrant analysis can help with. The quadrant analysis basically graphs how fast your pedal moves vs. average effective force applied to pedal (as calculated by the software). With this graph you can see how you generated the power you were putting out - e.g. fast spinning vs. mashing pedals. Here is how TrainingPeaks designed the quadrants in the software - QI: High Force and High Cadence - An example of this would be sprinting; QII: High Force and Low Cadence - An example would be steep hill repeats, big gear intervals and a lot of Mt. Biking resides in QII as well; QIII: Low Force and Low Cadence - An example would be a recovery ride or just an easy ride around town; QIV: Low Force and High Cadence - An example would be a Criterium or fast pedaling drills. The following two graphs show the two loops with the power data brought to foreground for first loop and then second loop - next to each quadrant indicator you can see average % of all power for the whole ride and for the selected range.

If you look at the two pictures above (you may actually need to go to pull the image on your desktop or enlarge it in your browser to see the detail) the power is mostly generated in QIV - low force high cadence and QII low force low cadence (read as below 90 rpm, but if you look closely the cadence is not all that low). I did some work in big gear against the wind on both loops that show in QII. It is interesting to look at the ride in this format and look not only at how well I stayed in the planned power ranges, but also consider how I generated the power.

These are the features that I started using right away and continue to use them in my training analysis. If you want to learn more I suggest to review replay of the seminar about WKO+ that you can find here. Or review information about WKO+ on TrainingPeaks.com.

One day I'll be here

NXTRI09_Jorgen_Melau_BEST-17
Originally uploaded by NXTRI

This is on my list of cool races - Norseman Tri. I hope to make it here before I hit 40 - or in the year I hit 40. Looks like a very challenging race.

Recap of last few months

It has been a while since I posted on this page. Few things kept getting in the way - buildup for marathon in Philly, family time and work - the usual mix for every age grouper. So instead of stressing about another thing I decided to keep the blog on the back burner until I can get back to it. My apology to all readers that missed my regular posts. I can not make any promises other than that I'll keep posting as my other responsibilities and hobbies allow.

Philadelphia Marathon

This year I kept Philly Marathon on my schedule as A-race with proper build-up and taper just like last year. The build-up was very good coming out of the tri season we switched to a lot more and longer running. Most of my training runs were spot on and I had lots of confidence going into Philly. I did have a great race, but marathon still kicked my bottom. I have not made as huge mistake as I did last year, but I still paced the first half little too fast and had a prime experience of hitting the wall in Manayunk. Luckily I was not reduced to walking and could still keep running all the way back to the museum to the finish line. Only my pace was not as fast as I wanted it. I still got a huge PR - over 20 minutes which I'm quite happy with. My finish time was 3:33 and change which is few minutes shy of my goal. I could probably break down the race for you, but it is not very interesting - fast first few miles (not by much, but still above where I should have been running) and then gradual slow down until mile 18. From there on lots of mental games and pushing through pain to get to the finish - sprinting up the hill was really only a 9:30 pace which was just a result of the carb depletion and dehydration. The usual marathon story. So marathon stays on my list of things to master, but not next year. More about that later.

Christmas City Classic

Besides small 5k Turkey Trot I ran just a week after marathon (ran not raced) I did race the regular 5 mile Christmas City Classic in Bethlehem which is a nice local race with many runners dressed-up in Christmas costumes. Very nice event if you live near Bethlehem PA. I ran the entire race by feel with few glances on my watch to check immediate pace. I did mess-up my calibration on purpose so the pace was showing about 30 seconds per mile slower than what I was running. I used this strategy in previous races to push my pace in triathlon and it works as well in running race. I improved my last years time by about 50 seconds which is a nice improvement of 10 seconds per mile. Not bad. My running definitely improved this year and still has some way to go.

Next year planning

As I finished Philly and started to think about next season I decided that it is not going to be Ironman distance season just yet. I feel like the long stuff makes me slower - the buildup for marathon was good, but I really felt like I lost my speed (the one I had during the top events in the season - just around the Anthracite Tri and Quakerman Half). In one local very small 5k I was unable to run faster than 6:55-7:00 which is my 10k race pace. This is understandable since we did not work on this system as much prior to that race and only got into intervals in the marathon buildup. So after some very short thinking I told Craig and Erica that next season my focus will be on Half and Olympic distance and that I want to really work on my speed in all three disciplines - especially run. With that I picked two A-races - IM 70.3 Rhode Island and Savageman half. The rest of the season includes some build-up run races like Superbowl 10k in Feb, local duathlon in April, Lehigh Valley Half Marathon, IM 70.3 Eagleman, and few local Olympic races. So instead long steady stuff I'm getting ready for short fast training sessions with lots of pain, hard track sessions that I enjoyed so much (even if I complained) and fun shorter racing. I'm really looking forward to it.

I hope you all have great holidays and happy New Year. Keep safe while training and racing.

ChesapeakeMan AquaVelo - longest swim and ride of my life

This past weekend I took my family down to Cambridge Maryland to be with me when I raced the AquaVelo race during the ChesapeakeMan festival of races. Along side the full Ironman distance race there is an option to swim 2.4 mile (the aqua option) or swim and bike (aqua velo option - the race I was doing). This was actually very first attempt at swimming 2.4 miles and biking 112 miles. The longest ride leading up to this race was about 80 miles on the rolling hills around my house and the longest swim I ever did was the 1.2 miles in half iron races. But I had no doubt going into this race that if I paced the event well I will finish in good position.

We left the house on Friday morning to make it down to the race venue in time to pickup the packet, check-in the bike, get groceries, and get some sleep before the long day.

We got to Cambridge around little after the time when the transition opened and after picking up the race packet we made our way to the transition. I checked the bike, made sure the new batteries in power meter work and took the bike for short spin up and down the road. Ian made sure my pedals worked so I can get through the whole 112 miles on the bike. Then I just dropped off the bike at my rack.

Ian had a blast with Dasa and Lada and he even went with me to check out the swim buoys that were already in the water ready for the morning swim. The swim did not look all that long - I guess I got used to the idea of longer swims. My only concern was the wind for both the swim and bike.

Then it was time to check out the swim to bike transition rack where we will put our bike gear. Ian actually tested my bike helmet and got very aero before we went to the hotel to get some late lunch.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful - trip to the hotel, lunch and pre-race meeting where we heard a bit about the course and how the day is planned out to unfold. Then it was time to mix my drinks for next day and get to bed. Surprisingly I slept well and got pretty solid 5.5 hours of sleep. Which is always good.

Next morning Dasa drove me to Cambridge to the race start, I setup my bike and got ready for the start. Wind picked up quite a bit from the day before which meant that both swim and bike will be interesting. Still I did not mind it at all - I did swim in this area before and was ready for pretty bad conditions. This seemed like a mild version of what I was expecting. Around 6 Dasa took off to catch some more ZZZs and make sure Ian is OK. I just went through my pre-race routine - walk the transition, take care of my business and suit up for the swim. I met with few friends from my local races, said hello and wished good luck in the long day ahead of us. Erica and Craig arrived as well as did my buddies Chris and Herb. Erica and Craig were doing the full iron distance race (Erica as part of relay with her sister Katie) and both Chris and Herb raced AquaVelo with me.

Shortly before 7am we were directed to the water which was very nice and generally warmer than the air outside - especially in the wetsuit. Few seconds after 7am the gun went off and we were under way. I took Erica's advice and made sure to start at the pace I expected to swim through the whole race. No sprinting from the crowd - I left that to other people. The swim is two loops of triangular course. First leg was easy as we swam with the current and wind, only towards the end of the leg the waves started to pick-up. They were more significant after turn buoy and even more significant on the way back. But I just found the right rhythm and kept sighting. It was pretty hard at times and I found myself swimming to the start buoy instead of the turn buoy. Luckily one of the kayakers yelled at me and I corrected my direction. I probably lost few minutes with this, but that made me sight even more on the second loop which was almost perfect. I swam the out leg pushing little more and had someone draft of off me - I did not mind someone drafting, but I was not happy with him touching my feet with every stroke. That was just not cool. I decided not to pay attention to it - since I'll probably shake him after the turn buoy - which actually happened. On the way back I kept sighting little more and swam to the right buoy before returning back to the water exit. I exited the water at 1:08:55 which is pretty good swim time for the conditions we were facing. I'm not sure what my place was after the swim, but by the first turnaround (10 miles) on the bike I was in 22nd place. But let's not get too much ahead.

Transition was pretty good - I ran on the wrong side of the rack, but did not lose much time with that. Then I was in changing tent taking off my wetsuit and putting on my helmet. I stuck my wetsuit to my transition bag, ran to my bike rack and was on my way. The transition was about 2:20, but I do not know for sure as my watch switched off about 3 minutes into the swim - I probably hit someone with my hand and stopped the watch. I did not really mind it as race takes the splits from the chip (luckily my chip did not die on the swim, but did on the bike).

I started my bike computer before crossing the mat to have proper time for the bike leg. I was aiming to complete the 112 miles in 5 hours and 15 minutes which meant about 21.5 - 21.7 mph through out. The course is pancake flat so this is very doable if the wind is not too strong. The plan was to take the first 20 miles easy as a warm-up to settle into the position, then bump up the power output a little and hold it for the first whole loop (up to about 64 miles) and then increase the effort and keep pushing to the finish. I did not have to run (well at least not in the race) so I could afford to push higher wattage than in the full race.

Even on my warm-up out and back 20 miles I moved-up few positions and at the turnaround I was about 10-12 minutes down on the leaders and in about 22nd place which was a good position this early in the race. On the way out we were really moving - with little power output we were all doing comfortable 26 mph - it was after turnaround that we had to fight the wind and the speed immediately dropped to 21 mph with higher power output - even in perfect aero position. Poor guys that were already tired at that point and were stretching out or rode upright like sails. I did not know where I was relative to the AquaVelo folks and while my goal was to finish in the top 10 I knew the best way to reach that goal is to stick to the race plan. And I did. I had no interest in chasing people or fighting for position. I got into the few packs - well we all rode legally, but you have 2-4 guys constantly trading places and pacing off of each other. That makes the miles fly by like nothing. The wind seemed quite OK on the first 20-30 miles, but when we turned to the marshes it seemed to beat at us from all directions. At times I had to come out of aero to grab my handlebars to keep the bike from running off the road. According to some people there were wind gusts of 20 mph at times and pretty constant wind of 10mph. I was actually very happy to be done with the first loop and I was not disappointed missing to see my family as I finished the loop about 10 minutes faster than planned.

As I started the second loop of the remaining 48 miles things started to get uncomfortable - it was tough to find comfortable position on the seat, aero was not comfortable either. But I knew if I wanted to be fast I had to stay aero as much as possible so I forced myself stick in aero position and only stretched from time to time. The worst part of the second loop were miles 70-80 - that is the gray area of the race. You are not close to finish to start counting down the miles and mind can play games with you. I was determined to keep pushing especially after being passed by fellow AquaVelo competitor that probably stopped for special needs bag (I did not as I treated special needs bag as bag for case something went wrong on loop 1 - I was good after loop 1 so I just blew by the special needs area). Shortly after being passed I saw that there was another AquaVelo competitor ahead. So I stuck close to the guy that passed me and we caught up to Herb. It was good to see fellow EnMu athlete and we exchanged few pleasantries as we traded places. We pushed each other quite nicely for the next about 7-10 miles and completely lost contact with the man that brought us together. I kept my pace going and after few miles I checked if Herb is still behind me and found he was falling back a little. I just stuck to my plan and as I was getting close to mile 90 I opened up the pace even more. Now the goal was to break 5 hours mark. It was entirely possible to do it since I still had time to get to the finish with about 30-40 seconds to spare. So I concentrated on pushing hard, staying aero and keeping my back relaxed with regular stretching every few miles. I blew past few competitors that were finishing their first loop and encouraged most of them to keep pushing to the finish. The cutoff was still some 4 hours away so they had plenty of time to finish the bike leg. I rolled past the last aid station, took water and kept pushing. It was only few miles to the finish. I was almost like in a dream - you may know the out of body experience when everything just seems going well and you do not even notice the effort you are putting out on the bike - fluid state. This stuck with me all the way to the finish. I was actually little sad that the day is done for me. I did indeed get my sub-5 hours bike split - with about 25 seconds to spare (not sure of the exact time from the chip as it died on me, but my bike computer shows clearly that I stopped moving my bike before 5 hours were over on the bike.

After I finished I was greeted by my family and the race director who handed me 5th overall award for the AquaVelo - great I like being 5th more than being 10th. It will have prominent place in my library next to all the other AG and overall awards from the past few years of racing. I was genuinely pleased with the result.

And well then it was time to tie on my shoes and go for a nice jog with new found friends - David who finished before me and his wife who were doing transition run as well.

The run did not go all that well - first mile was fine, then I got some GI issues and then my head started to spin - I seriously did not fuel for run after bike and it was time to get back to the finish line and get some food before collapsing. Pizza did me good and I was ready to go for some serious meal. We packed my stuff and headed over to next town over to get some pasta and meat - carbs and protein is always good after races. I felt like a pig - I ate everything I saw. No wonder I burned some 4500 - 5000 calories in the race so I needed to refuel. Since then I kind of toned down my eating, but I seem to be in this pig out mode since the weekend.

It was great to spend the afternoon with my family, have quite dinner and then just chill in our hotel room. My legs were hurting like hell on the day of the race, but they got better on Sunday and I had almost no residual soreness on Monday. I love AquaVelo races - I was less beat up than after half iron race. And as usual here are few pictures showing the blast Ian had at the race - he was so happy the whole weekend. It was great watching him - and he actually slept from 4pm on Sunday all the way to 8am on Monday. So in a way he had his race as well.

Quakerman 70.3 - rainy day at the lake with great finale

About a week before the race it looked like we will have some light sunshine and pleasant 70's for the run. It was not to be - the weather forecast changed from partly cloudy to cloudy and then to rainy over the 2-3 days before the race. Oh well I thought - another wet one which seems to be the rule this season. I was hoping this will not turn into duathlon and at least that prayer was heard and we did have a full tri.

I'll spare you all the details about my waking time and eating habits. After I got on site I got quickly body marked - only on my hand which I did not like much. I prefer knowing who just passed me especially if I can not see if they are in my race or the olympic race. Oh well I guess they did not have enough volunteers to do proper body marking. After that I went back to my car to get my stuff and setup transition. I picked spot close to bike exit right next to Lenny and across the aisle from Chris - my EnMu buddies. While we were getting setup we were being checked by the USAT referee - well our helmets that is. Funny is that the same referee gave Chris hard time during Steelman and we were joking about it just before she showed up. It all turned up to be good fun and she actually came back once again to tell me jokingly that she needs to check the helmet again just as we were getting ready for practice swim.

I got into my wetsuit, stuck extra ear plug into the wetsuit in case I lose the ones I have in my ears - last OWS was a big learning - I got such motion sickness without ear plug that I almost passed out in calm lake after I lost one of my ear plugs. The water was cold for my taste, but after 400m warm-up it got better. I was ready to go. Just before the start I said hi to Leah and Garen who were doing the Olympic distance and came to check out our start. Then it was time to rock - went to the water, lined up up front and took the inside line. After the horn I went ahead and pushed quite a bit to get out of the pack. Well that lasted a little while, but once we got to the first buoy I got in the middle of few people and had to speed up again. Then I got caught in between two guys and could not go through or around them. At that point my HR was too high so I decided to let it settle by swimming on my back for about 30-60 seconds. Once I regrouped I continued freestyle only little more paced. At the second turn we turned back against the wind and pretty good chop. I had to stop once or twice to check where we are swimming as sighting was not easy in these conditions. But I remembered the Chesapeake mile swim and the chop was not all that bad. Well it was washing over my head and I swallowed some water before I got into the rhythm. On the second lap it was much calmer - less people to fight with and I was able to settle into my pace and just keep going without any breaks. I exited the water about 2 minutes slower than I planned, but given conditions it was an OK swim. Based on results I had 11th swim out of the 90 finishers. Not bad. Definitely an improvement from last year where I was further back even though I had great swim. I guess the hours in the pool are showing some results. I still have to have a stellar swim though.

After fairly fast transition - slower than usual as I was getting my arm warmers for the bike - I was biking out of the park and pacing myself up the hill. Poor guy I passed on that hill he was clearly struggling on the incline I wonder how he did on all the other hills especially on the RT313 climb that can be a bitch especially the third time around. Unfortunately my bike prep was not stellar for this race and I forgot to check my power meter - it did not work. Oh well what can I do I'll just go by feel. I have done enough riding on these hills to know when I'm pushing over threshold and when I'm slacking off. So I went. The race loops three times around lake Nockamixon which is rolling hills course with few good climbs. I wanted to do the first loop little more conservatively, then second loop little harder and third loop little bit harder than second. But not too hard to kill my legs before the run. Tough balance to keep on these climbs even with power meter. I was hoping for 21.5 - 21.8 average speed on the course in dry conditions. Wet roads make for slightly slower bike as I do not risk as much on the bike since the last year wipe out during JerseyMan that put me out of training for few weeks. It is not worth it. I ended-up averaging 20.8 over the 56 miles which is about mile per hour slower than I wanted, but it still gave me 3rd fastest bike split of the day. There was some wind and rain so people were not as fast as in dry conditions. Plus there was a lot of debree on the roads from the rain storms we had few days before the race. Also quite a few people ended up with flat tire (one poor guy actually had two flats and still finished in top 10 - great run for him - his legs got a good break waiting for the sag wagon with technician). After the race I noticed that I was about 1 mm away from flat myself. I got a sharp rock stuck in my tire and it went all the way to casing of the tubular - yeah big luck for me.

Transition two was fast - just got my socks, shoes and off I went. After the experience during Patriot's tri I will not do any run longer than 10k sock-less. That Patriot's run was the most stupid idea of this season resulting in blisters that took about week to heal. My goal for the run was to keep pace between 7:50 and 8:00 minute mile. First half a mile was a huge struggle as my quads were hurting from the bike and the left one was really bad. Luckily as I was closing on second mile most of the pain went away and I was able to run solid pace even on the uphills. I focused on good form, breathing and pacing myself - it is a long run and as I learned during the BlackBear you will only hurt yourself if you try to go out too fast. Even on downhills I was sure not to go much faster than 7 minute mile. Surprisingly I felt great after the first 3.25 miles (first turnaround).

I was in second place (well technically third, but the girl running in front of me was part of relay). I felt great the half of the second loop and only stated to fade after the turnaround - well time to get the boost - I took three salt tables and chewed them - yuk it was nasty, but helped a bit. I washed them down with gel water mix and in about 2 minutes I was back in the game. Unfortunately just at that point when I was starting mile 12 the guy behind me made his move and passed me. He was going much too fast for me to sustain the pace for 2 miles (we still had about 2 miles to the finish at this point). So I just kept my pace and focused on my race. After aid station where I got last cup of water I saw him about 50 meters in front of me and kept him in my sight for next mile. Then I lost contact completely. But that was OK I was running my race at that point and I knew I had only one more mile to go - so I opened it up and ran what seemed like 7 minute mile - all the way to the finish. If anything I was picking up speed and not slowing thanks to friend of mine who was cooling down on the race course and ran in front of me - his cool down is 6 minute mile I guess. He is really fast (and placed real well in the Olympic race).

And there it was finish line - I almost took down one poor lady in the finish shoot as I passed her (she was in the Oly race). After I crossed the finish line I simply collapsed to the ground to give my legs a break. I was not exhausted I just needed to sit down and that was the fastest way to sit. I returned the chip, git back up and grabbed some food.

Then I re-united with my family and shared the moment with my son and wife. They are my greatest supporters. Later I met with Leah, then Chris crossed the finish line and we shared a moment.

Then it was time to change to something dry and collect my stuff from transition. After that I checked the results and there it was - I was third overall male finisher. That is the first time placing in top three for me and it feels great. This is certainly thanks to the great support and training guidance I'm getting from my coaches Erica and Craig. I'm looking forward to my next race which is the Chesapeake Man Aqua Velo - which is 2.4mi swim and 112mi bike race (so Ironman distances with no marathon). After that I'll be training for Philly marathon with goal to break the 3:30 mark that escaped me last year with few stupid first timer mistakes I plan to avoid this year.

Quakerman 70.3 - quick update

This is just a short update after few weeks of silence. I have been busy training and at work. This past Saturday I competed in 70.3 race around lake Nockamixon. It was cold and rainy day which was not all that bad - I take it rather than the 95 degrees humid day we had 2 years ago. I did very well during this one and placed third overall in field shy of 100 people. Proper race report with pictures will follow. Sunday was family day and tomorrow back to work. I'm sure I'll find some time to post more details some day this week.