First Tri Club Open Water Swim

Earlier today, I took a few members of the CVA Triathlon Club to Lake Nokomis for their first open water swim! (Again, it’s under 3 weeks until their first triathlon!!) And it was cool that we had a lot of others meet up with us too!

Pharmie brought her wetsuit for Sarah to try. Sarah is thinking about doing a 2 mile Lake Superior swim in a couple of weeks, and you NEED a wetsuit for that! Here she is squeezing her way into a wetsuit for the first time:

Here was our whole gang:

Hannah, Cynthia, Evan, me, Pharmie, Tim, Sarah, Sara, Jen

You’ll remember Hannah, Evan, and Sarah from the 4 miler this past weekend. Cynthia is on the CVA Tri Club, and she’s doing her FIRST OLY this weekend!! Jen is doing an oly this weekend too. Tim is an old high-school buddy who has a similar oly PR as me. And Sara #2 (second from the right) was told about our get-together by Julia, as she’s training for the Lake Minnetonka 5 mile swim.

I also had to get a photo with the person who took that photo above. Deb, an admissions counselor at CVA, came to hang out on the beach and watch our stuff as we swam. Thanks Deb!!

I gave some advice to Sarah, Hannah, and Evan, as it was their FIRST OPEN WATER SWIM! We all headed out, treaded water for a moment, and took off. I stopped after 45 seconds to see how everyone was doing. Sarah and Evan were RIGHT on my tail! Nice! Hannah was a bit slower, but she KNOWS she can get through the race, and that’s all that matters.

As we were wrapping up, a big “Team In Training” group hit the water and swam all around us (including Ms. R). They maybe had 40-50 people out there (and 2 kayakers). It was good experience for my students to be out there with a lot of others. And they did GREAT! Here’s Lake Nokomis as it was filling up:

Cynthia, Tim, and Jen had to get going. Hannah swam in after 1 long lap. After a bit longer, Sarah and Evan came in. Here’s Evan sighting nicely on his way back to shore:

They popped up to run it in...

...and Evan went down in a heap:

Sarah kept running up to shore:

Evan immediately picked his butt up and ran in looking like a pro:

Here’s us few stragglers getting ready to head home:

Hannah, Sarah, Deb (curled up with a blanket
and a book), Pharmie, and Evan

EVERYONE SURVIVED AND DID SO WELL!! Sarah and Evan felt great! (And looked good too!) Hannah’s going to hit the pool a little more, and I’ll try to help her out to get a bit more comfortable. It’s under 3 weeks to their big day!!

(p.s. Check back Saturday or Sunday for a quick weekend giveaway!! You don’t want to miss it! I’m choosing 2 winners for a bunch of my new favorite recovery drink!!)

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Getting My A** Out The Door

This week I’m teaching a week long Digital Photo class for high school students at one of the colleges where I teach. That’s on top of my regular undergraduate Color Theory class. Tuesday and Thursday are the days of overlap. So yesterday, I had 6.5 hours of teaching and entertaining high school kids IMMEDIATELY followed by 3 hours of Color Theory critique/test review/project intro/work time.

And then I had scheduled a bike ride when I got home.

Yeah. Right.

On the drive home, I talked myself out of doing the ride. Twenty minutes later, I had talked myself back in to doing it. A few minutes after that, I had talked myself out of it again. FINALLY, I said I was going to do it, so I got dressed and out the door before I could change my mind again. I was just going to go for a short ride. I was thinking about something that Stefanie recently said on her blog:

I told myself the workout doesn't need to be perfect but I do need to be present.

I figured SOMETHING was better than NOTHING. So I did the River Road / Shepard Road loop once (15.8 miles). I pushed pretty hard for the quick ride, and finished with a 20.1 mph average (which included a nice climb up Ramsey Hill with 4 miles left). Better than nothing. I’ll do a longer ride this weekend, and my training will still be on track.

OWS with the CVA Tri Club at Lake Nokomis tonight at 6 pm! Should be interesting!! I’ll bring my camera, and I’ll have a report tomorrow morning. If you’re a local looking for an OW swim, stop on by at 6!

(p.s. Mark this Saturday on your calendars - I'm doing another simple giveaway. All you need to do is stop by on Saturday and comment on my post. It will only be open to entries on Saturday and Sunday, so MAKE SURE TO STOP BY THIS WEEKEND!!)

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I’m NOT Really That Sweaty

Or, “The 'Free To Run 4 Miler' Official Photos”

Here are a few official photos from the “Free to Run 4 Miler” that I did with a few of my Tri Club students on the 4th. Here’s just before the start:

I’m on the far right


Ready, set, go


Students Hannah, Sarah, and Evan starting
(you can barely see Hannah in the green)

Danielle was at the turn around, and she snapped a few photos. Here’s leader (and soon-to-be winner) Vlad running with NO ONE behind him:

Ryan, Doug, and I finally came through about 60-90 seconds later, all vying for second place:

Here I am just after finishing (it started to rain about half way into the race - that’s NOT sweat!):

Me (3rd), Vlad (1st), and Ryan (2nd)


Male and female winners. Yes, this is the woman
I so creepily wrote about in my last post...

Soon, Evan came running in. Here you can see me taking a photo of him running by:

Sarah finishing


Hannah finishing

Like I said in my race report, I went to help the announcer after I finished. I would help read numbers and find the runner’s name on the list so he could announce them and then cross them off (so we knew they weren’t out there anymore). Gary snapped a shot of us once it started to slow down, and he labeled this “Steve Stenzel’s Team Helping Gaylen Announce Racers:”

Nice job, team!!! Congrats on a solid race!

In other quick news, my heel is feeling pretty good. The only thing I did last week was swim once (not far) and then race on Saturday. During the race, it BARELY got a little tight (just at the very end), but it didn’t get sore. That’s good news! Later that day, I was out taking pictures, and it started to downpour. After being stuck under an awning at a body shop for 20 minutes trying to wait-out the rain, I finally decided to run back to my car. My heel hurt a little after that 2 block run in non-running shoes. D’oh. But it’s back on the upswing again. So.....

I swam 18 - 50 yard intervals last night. I cut my rest down to 15 seconds, and averaged 41.05 / 50. That’s just a little faster than 3 weeks ago when I did 17 with 20 seconds rest. I also took my heart rate after a few of them (as Andrea suggested). After 5, it was 156. After 10, it was 162. And after 15, it was 168. Andrea said that was good - she just didn’t want to see it drop which would mean I was giving myself too much rest.

Some members of the tri club are meeting me at Lake Nokomis tomorrow evening at 6, and they’ll be trying their FIRST open water swim!! Wish us luck! I’ll be back with photos!

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Free to Run 4 Miler

Yesterday morning, a few of students from the “CVA Triathlon Club” and I went down to race at the Free to Run 4 Miler on Harriet Island. (Note: It’s only 3 weeks until a few CVA students tackle their first sprint triathlon!!) We all met at CVA and headed down to the race together.

Harriet Island was hosting “The Taste of Minnesota:” a drunken food fair with live bands. (Tonight is Brett Michaels if you’re interested.) So I wasn’t surprised to find a porta-potty that looked like this:

All of us got our numbers and got ready to race! Look at the excitement!!

Ha! Sorry Sarah, but you KNEW I was going to do this! Here’s a better photo of us pre-race:

Evan, Sarah, Hannah, and me

Soon, we were shuffled towards the starting line. I kept looking back at those 3 and giving them thumbs-ups! I was hoping that they’d have a good race and feel good about their performance.

Ready, set, GO!

We were off. A man named Vladimir who had a strong Russian accent quickly took the lead. And he just kept pulling away. Right away, I realized that unless he crashed, he’d easily take the win. I was running with a tall 27 year old name Ryan, and soon, we were joined by 43 year old Doug. The 3 of us were running side-by-side in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. We chatted about the weather, this race, other races, and the course for the first 2 miles. Friendly guys!! I love races like that!

Mile 1: 5:50. “Good. Solid, but not too hard. Where I want to be.”

As we were heading up to the turn-around, I saw Danielle at the aid station with her camera. I think she snapped a photo. I smiled and said hi, she cheered for me, and us 3 guys rounded a cone to head back home.

Mile 2: 6:04. “Slower, but OK. Let’s get mile 3 back under 6:00.”

I was excited to see my students after the turn-around. Evan wasn’t too far back! Then came Sarah. And Hannah was close behind. They were all smiling, so that was good news!! I cheered for all of them. Doug knew a lot of people out there too, as he was cheering for a lot of people as well. I LOVE friendly races like that!

Mile 3: 6:08. “Too slow. Damn. Pick it up Steve.”

I ran the middle of this race a little too slow. I usually push myself hard in the middle of my training runs, and I didn’t do that well at this race. I think the 3 of us running together were a little afraid to pick it up too much and take the out-right lead for second place - we were all running with the “pack” mentality.

I have a good “slowly-building kick” over the last mile of a race, but I don’t have a good “last 100 meters” kick. So I started picking up the pace after the mile 3 marker. But Ryan and Doug didn’t get left behind - they picked it up and stayed right with me. Second place was still anyone’s guess. (Vladimir CLEARLY had the lead, so we were all just shooting for second. We couldn’t even see Vladimir anymore.)

I ran the middle of this race right behind these 2 guys, but with about 800 meters left, I was running ahead of these guys. I just had to try to hold that. We came off the wooded part of the trail into the opening near the park entrance, and we were all running HARD. At the little downhill into the park, Ryan picked it up and strided past me. Doug was right on my tail. I pushed and pushed and pushed. I couldn’t catch Ryan, but I didn’t know how far Doug was behind me. I tried to hold on to 3rd place. I hit the line just behind Ryan, but still in front of Doug for 3rd.

Mile 4: 5:44. “Better. Fast. Still, I should have pushed more last mile.”

Top 4 finishers (out of 154 runners):
1 Vladimir Reznikor, 29, 21:28, 5:22 pace
2 Ryun Hess, 27, 23:49, 5:58 pace
3 Steve Stenzel, 28, 23:49, 5:58 pace
4 Doug Brew, 43, 23:53, 5:59 pace

I grabbed my camera (so I could snap photos of my students running by) and went to help the guy who was reading numbers and names of people coming to the finish line. It wasn’t long before Evan came by:

Evan Nagan:
23/154 Overall, 19/74 Men, 30:56, 7:44 pace

Sold time! Nice finish!!

Then Sarah came running in, leading a pack home:

Sarah Ekstrom:
36/154 Overall, 8/80 Female, 34:06, 8:32 pace

Sarah had hoped to break 45:00. Yeah... she broke that by 16 minutes!! Nice job!

Not far behind her was Hannah:

Hannah Frick:
46/154 Overall, 13/80 Female, 35:50, 8:58 pace

Hannah’s goal was to run the whole race and not have to stop to walk. And, by golly, she ran the whole way! Oh, and Gary from Charities Challenge already sent me Hannah’s finishing photo (you can see Gary in the photo above). Here’s his version, and you can see me taking a photo under Hannah’s armpit:

Nice finishers photo, Hannah!

Sarah came to join me under the little announcer’s tent:

Man, we’re an awkward group:

We grabbed one last photo at the finish line with Gary and Jeanne from Charities Challenge:

Me, Evan, Hannah, Gary, Sarah, and Jeanne

Creepy side-note: the first place female was wearing short, tight “bun shorts,” and all of us noticed her amazing butt. Sarah wanted to touch it. And then slap it to see how it acted. She kept calling it something like “2 round bubbles.” Weird. But kinda true. As we were walking back to the car, the girl with the butt passed us with a group of people. My group wanted me to take a photo of her butt, but she was walking in front of someone else. But when they turned to head into the lot, I grabbed this blurry, creepy shot:

Sarah’s mouth dropped when her leg shot up on a barricade to stretch:

Then I turned to get a reaction shot of my group:

Back at the car, Sarah said 2 amazing words: “Uhhh..... breakfast??...” Yes, breakfast! We all headed to the Uptowner on Grand to stuff our faces:

Evan and I should have posed like Sarah and Hannah


This didn’t take long...

Congrats Evan, Sarah, and Hannah on such a strong race!!! You guys are SOOO going to rock the Chisago sprint tri!! I’ll be back with official race photos as soon as they are up. Happy weekend!!!

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Friday Funny 43: Bamboo Bikes

This isn’t “ha ha” funny, but it IS interesting. I think this is old news, but I just heard of it a few days ago. Did you know you can make bike frames out of bamboo? Here’s an article from the BBC a few days ago talking about it. It’s a pretty “green” bike (being bamboo grows so quickly), a bamboo frame only weighs about 4 pounds, and apparently it dampens vibrations better than carbon. This is news to me!!

I thought it was “neat” but maybe a little impractical for road cyclists. But then I came across this image of a bamboo bike ready to race an Ironman:

Man, that’s sleek!

p.s. My heel has been feeling GREAT the last 2-3 days, but I HAVE been taking it easy. (Since Sunday, I’ve only swum once, and that was short.) So I’ll be heading to the “Free to Run 4 Miler” tomorrow at Harriet Island. And I think there’ll be 3 tri club students running it too! Check back Saturday night or Sunday to see how they all did!! (I hope my heel holds up!)

p.p.s. If you came for a “ha ha” Friday Funny, here’s a little something from StuffThatMakesMeChuckle.com:

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A.R.T. for M.E.

So that 13.1 mile run on Sunday at WIBA wasn’t the smartest. Before the run, I was thinking, “Last year I did the full 13.1 at WIBA, and I was fine.” But I forgot that last year, I was trained for a marathon 2-3 weeks before. Oops.

With about 20 minutes left in the run, my heel had a little sharp pain. It was my achilles ready to give up. I got through the run OK, but my heel was SORE. Dang.

Monday morning, I called Dr. Folske ASAP, and made an appointment for some ART on my heel. I’ve talked a little about ART before (Active Release Techniques) - it’s a way to “dig out” tight/sore muscles and tendons. Some of it hurts a little. The final thing Dr. Folske did hurt MORE than just a little. To end our session, he had me stand up, with my left leg bent back at the knee resting on the therapy bed. Then he straddled my sore heel, dug in with his fingers and thumbs using his body weight, all while flexing and releasing my foot. That SUCKED (but it was a “good” suck - that sounds weird...).

It doesn’t show up too well in this photo, but my lower calf / upper heel was all red when he got done:

That was Monday. On Tuesday, was it was still a little sore, so I took it easy. It felt quite a bit better yesterday, so I was able to swim (just a short 1000 yards in 16:17 [1:37.8 / 100 yards]). Today it feels even better. I hope to go for a bike ride after class. Then I’ll rest tomorrow.

If all goes as planned, I’ll be doing a 4 mile road race at Harriet Island on the 4th. (A few members of the tri club are going to do it too!) I think with my iffy heel, it wouldn’t be smart to wear my racing flats. I REALLY want to try them out in a road race, but this might not be the best time. Anyway, here's to a healthy, pain-free heel!

p.s. I don't mind visiting Dr. Folske because I get to talk with Michelle Lilienthal who works for him. Yes, THIS Michelle Lilienthal:



Yeah, I might be a little star-struck. She just did the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon (part of Grandma's Marathon in Duluth) WITHOUT tapering, just as "another training run," in a week that she had run 90 miles, and still finished as the 6th female in 1:18!! WHAT?!? That's crazy talk!!

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More WIBA Photos

I have just a few more WIBA photos to share that some friends took. First, here are some from Stu:

Spitting in my goggles pre-swim


With Pharmie before getting wet

I like this next sequence of us jumping into Lake Menona. The best is the 3rd image down - I look freaked out, bow-legged, and strange, and Pharmie looks GREAT:

Tanya snapped one of the 3 of us before swimming:

Pharmie, Tanya, me

And she also got one of me grilling in my “grilling outfit” and with Pharmie in her normal “I just biked 60 miles outfit:”

Oh yeah: Stu got a good one of me grilling too. I like how the all the smoke makes this look like a dream sequence:

Is this your dream, baby?
Gross. Why did I say that?...

And Wil got a few good ones too. Here I am taking a vodka water break:

Chatting with new buddies Running Jayhawk and Out of Shape Guy


Non-bird and non-head-cut-off group shot pre-run
(if you don’t know what that all means, check my previous post)


Everyone starting the run in downtown Madison

WIBA #4 was SUCH a fun weekend! It was great to hang out with old friends!! And it was great to meet other fun athletes. We’ll have to see if we can make it to WIBA #5 next year. (The date is being changed, so we’ll have to see.)

Check my previous post for a TON of photos from the WIBA weekend.

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