Uphill Both Ways

On my ride last night, I joined up with the Inside-Out Sports ride. On my short warmup ride to join them, I just felt like I was working much harder than I should have been for the speed I was going. I wrote it off as lingering fatigue from my weekend exertion.

Once I joined up with the group, my legs didn't feel any better. I was hanging at the back and got split from the main group by an over impatient driver. Once they had gone on their way to eat doughnuts and torment some other group of cyclists, I gave my best effort but just couldn't bridge the small gap. My heart rate was through the roof and I was getting a little frustrated. I finally flew the white flag when a typically much slower rider easily cruised by me on a slight downhill. My legs never felt good the entire ride and I was starting to have some serious doubts about racing Powerman Ohio this weekend...

...Until I got home only to realize my rear brakes were off center and jammed against my rim!!!!! You'd have thought one of those people riding my wheel early on might have noticed. Now I don't feel so bad about how poorly I was riding, except that my legs were toast this morning.

Turtle, Turtle, Turtle...

...or at least that's what I felt like at the Big Lick Triathlon this past Saturday at Smith Mountain Lake in southern Virginia. The race was very nice and well done. The lake and surrounding country side were a nice place to race. There were plenty of fast people but I defenitely wasn't one of them.

I decided to do this race on Tuesday for a couple of reasons. One, as a gauge of how my training was going (easy, base miles with very little swimming) and two, it was off the NCTS radar to keep myself from putting in pressure on my performance.

The wetsuit legal, 75 degree swim went pretty well. I managed to get beat up pretty good on the first leg of the triangle shaped swim and go way off course on the other two legs. Still came out of the water around 22:3x and made the long run to T-1 with several others.

Once on the bike, I had a hard time making the change to a cyclist. I couldn't get my heart rate down through transition and was passed by several guys in the first few miles. I finally got into a rythm on the bike, passed all those guys back and had a decent ride with the exception of getting stung on my right arm by a bumblebee and then having my left aerobar come loose. At least they provided me some distractions.

I got into and out of T-2 pretty quickly, but that's right about when the wheels came off. My legs felt dead and I was low on energy and out of fight. It was a pretty hilly run with most of the first mile going up. I held out hope that I would start feeling better after that first mile. No such luck. I plodded through what I'm pretty sure is my slowest 10k EVER!!

I ended up 22nd overall behind a bunch of young college punks (it was the mid atlantic collegiate championships) and the genetic freak, Chuck Dumke, 3rd OA 1:58.

Competition...before the race starts

I've got a good idea what my early season race calendar is looking like for 2008, but that's my little secret for now. After that, I'm not sure but I've started looking around for options. A popular race that I've always been interested in is the Eagleman 70.3. I got on the website just to see what the dates was and this is what I found...

June 8, 2008

1.2 Mile Swim, 56 Mile Bike, 13.1 Mile Run

Registration is now closed!

HOLY CRAP!!! It's already sold out! Now, this is becoming normal for the big Ironman races but now this is trickling down to shorter races. In December 2004, I sat anxiously at the computer one early morning to sign up for St. Anthony's. At least with that one, the previous season was over. Oh well, I'll keep looking.



This brings me to the fact that I have decided to resume my triathlon career. During my "return to running/find other hobbies," I came to the realization that this is what I enjoy doing the most, swimming, biking, and running. I may not ever make any real $$ doing it but I'll continually be on the prowl for fast times and first place finishes. My return to racing will start this weekend at the Big Lick Triathlon on southern Virginia. It's an olympic distance and I'm not counting on my time being very fast, which I'm ok with (or trying to be ok with). It's off the NCTS radar and I signed up as an age-grouper instead of elite to try and take a little pressure off myself. My training is coming along pretty steady. I haven't done any hard or fast workouts, just what I would consider base miles. It should be a good 'kick in the ass' to go along with the excitment of watching the Duke 1/2 IM last weekend.



Speaking of the Duke 1/2...Alison, who I coached for her first 1/2, had a great race! Her plan was to just go out there and 'do' the race and get the experience before she focuses on time or placing goals. She had great performances in all 3 disciplines and finished 17th overall and 5th in her age group with a time of 5:31!! Incredible on such a tough course. Here's a photo from the race...note: I think she smiled the entire race!

It's RAINING!

So, we are finally getting some rain, real actual substantial rain!! We really needed it badly. I went to swim at Jordan Lake on Thursday with Alison as her last swim prep before the Duke 1/2 this weekend and couldn't believe how low the water was. This storm should bring in some cooler weather for the race this weekend. It will be a fun race to watch, which is what i'll be doing on Sunday.

This past weekend I got the chance to head back to Athens. The Dawgs lost but I did get to see my folks, my grandparents in SC, and to top it off, I finally got to drive my dad's tractor that he refinished!

Time is on my side

This is my first week at work where I now work from 12:00-8:00 on Tuesday and Thursdays. So far, it's great! Tuesday I was able to sleep in and then got a 2 hour ride in with plenty of time to make lunch and even get to work a couple of minutes early. Today, I slept in again before helping time/count for Alison and her big swim workout which she nailed. Then I got in a nice little run. I do end up working later but it's after most people have left the store and I'm able to get more busy work done with fewer distractions. This scheduling will come in real handy once the days get shorter and I want to do a ride or two a week in the outdoors. I'm defenitely luck to have the felxibility at work to do this!
I talked to all three of the "maternal" figures in my life yesterday! My grandmother on my mom's side is recovering quite nicely from shoulder surgery. My grandmother on my dad's side had a birthday yesterday and sounded as cheery and sweet as ever. I don't get to see either nearly as much as I'd like but it was nice to hear there voices. Oh yeah, and I talked to my mom. No special reason, she just likes to talk alot : ).
Alot of the Inside-Out crew is up in Madison for the Ironman this week. This was the last expo I worked last year before making the move to Philly. Wow! Alot has happened in the last 12 months!

Labor Day

It's Labor Day...so, I'm laboring.

This weekend was pretty relaxed which is just how I like it. Saturday I headed out for a 'long' ride in preparation for the start of the college football season. I added in a run just before the Georgia game, which they won and looked GREAT! Go Dawgs!

Sunday started off with a trip to the dog park. Dooley ran around, got barked at, got chased, and did some chasing of his own. After he sufficiently wore himself out, we headed home. Went on a short little ride before parking it on the couch for the rest of the day.

Congrats to Alicia Parr and Stacey Richardson for their 1st and 3rd place finishes at the World AG Triathlon Championships in Germany this past weekend!!

I actually had a decent week of training for the first time in quite a while. I accumulated a whopping 10 hours!! I'm finally starting to feel somewhat fit again. It's nice!

Back in Action...kinda

almost 7 months without a peep...here goes attempt #2 at keeping this thing more up to date.

So, as you would imagine, a LOT has happened in those 6+ months. I'll try and keep it short and to the point.

The biggest change was that at the end of March, I took the opportunity to return to North Carolina and Inside-Out Sports. I enjoyed my time in Philly and working with Elite but when it came down to it, i'm NOT a city person. It was a good experience and I learned alot and met some really cool people. On the Elite Bicycles side of things, I still fully stand behind the product just as much if not more! As Dave said many times, he could choose to be rich or successful, and he chose the latter. Hopefully the first will come in time.

Once I returned to N.C., I jumped in a small local sprint tri and came away with my first win. It was a nasty, rainy day (wait for this trend to form) on a hilly course but it was good to get in a good effort. I started first in the pool swim and never saw anyone for the next hour. my closest challenger was super-studette Stacey Richardson (top 3 overall at USAT nationals).

Next up was White Lake Sprint which I was able to call in a favor to get in at the last minute. I'd had an o.k. race here the year before and wanted to finish well but it's always a tough one with alot of the local sprint studs racing hard for the Best of the US slot. After a decent 'whitewater' swim, I held my own on the very windy two loop bike course, and then made up a few more slots on my strength, the run. I ended up 5th overall with the 18th best swim, 5th bike, and 3rd run. The weather was less than desirable but everyone had to deal with it.

DUSTIN SHINHOLSER
CARY NC

18

00:12:32

00:01:10
5
00:34:28

00:00:51

3
00:16:54

01:05:53

Overall, not a bad day.

At this point, I was starting to become a little burnt out and finding in harder and harder to get up for workouts. Even worse, after a missed or reduced workout, I'd mentally beat myself up for it. I made a decision to cancel my trip to Portland for USAT Nationals because it was to be an expensive solo trip and if I wasn't going to race hard, I wasn't going. The only race left that I was committed to was the Columbia Tri (1.5k-45k-10k) so I'd hang on through that one.

I headed up to Columbia, MD far less than prepared to race. Mentally, it just wasn't there. I drove the bike course and was suprised to see how technical and hilly it was. Not helping my cause! I got there on race morning after staying with my uncle and met Alison who came down to watch me race. I doddled around way too much and then had to rush to get to the start. I made it to the water after the pro wave went off 2 min before the elite wave that I was in. No problem except that I still didn't have my wetsuit on and I'd had no warmup...did I mention lack of motivation for workouts...I hadn't swam AT ALL since the White Lake race 2 weeks prior! I make it to the line of the in-water start with all of 10 seconds to spare. The swim actually went suprisingly well given the circumstances. I headed out of t1 only to lose my shoe and drop my bike, and it was raining (notice the pattern)! I rode steady but not hard. I just wasn't willing to go into that 'hurt' that racing using brings on and with the wet technical roads, I wasn't taking any chances on crashing. After I finally got through the long bike, I headed and just to get through the run to get it all over with. I finished 11/19 in the elite wave and farther back overall than I care to discuss. It was a good trip and a race that I'd like to take on again some time.

I had made a decision that I wanted to focus on my running for a while and try and hit some goal times in my head that would require running to be my main focus and not splitting time with the swim and bike. This went well for a few weeks of mileage build up and I was enjoying the feel of some real miles in my legs. I started to develop a pain in my left hamstring the progessively got worse, even though I thought it would just get better. It went from loosening up after a mile or so until finally one weekend 6 mile run at the beach, I hobbled through the entire workout.

I dropped my mileage from around 50 to at or less than 0. A big fat goose egg. Nada. Zip. Zilch!! I got real comfy in my easy chair, flipped channels, petted my dog, and even did a little surfing. I lost what tan I had and put on a few pounds of ice cream and gummy worms and it was great! At least for a while. Let's face it, I've always been athletic and I've always had something active going on. That's just me. I started riding my bike again and being drug to the pool at 6am by my roommate. I even slowly started putting in a few running miles. I headed to the NC/SC mountains one weekend to visit some friends gearing up for some upcoming IM races. It was a BIG reality check for how out of shape I'd become. Granted, these guys race professionally so they're not you're typical weekend warrior but I got spit out the back before we really got going.

Fast forward to present day. I've actually been working out pretty regularly these last few weeks. I'm running about 3 times a week, riding about the same, and swimming 2-3 times. I've got no real plan and just kinda go by how I feel. When I get in the pool, I just go with no real structure. It's kinda nice and takes alot of pressure off me mentally to hit certain splits, yardage, etc. I've been doing some training with Alison for the Duke 1/2 IM coming up in a few weeks. It'll be her first one so I've been coaching her through it. I'm headed out to Texas in late October for a 1/2 IM and I'm on the start list of Pinehurst (olympic) 2 weeks before. I know I'll make the trip to Texas and will make a decision on Pinehurst closer to race day. It's a touch NCTS race and my ego can't take a huge pounding to people I know ; ). Never say never though. I've got some early long course racing thoughts that I'm preparing for but I won't release the full details on that quite yet (hint: watch out for the cactus).

Portland here I come

This Philly winter thing is turning out to not be so bad. Apparantly it's a mild winter but i've got no problem now when it's in the 20's all day. I'm also liking when it snows, mainly because I don't have to think about driving/road conditions. I rode for 90 minutes one day when it was 27 degrees and it didn't really bother me.

Training is going pretty well. I'm still swimming quite regularly with the local master's team and it's really helping. The riding is coming along. Mainly on the trainer. I've gotten my fit pretty dialed in and we're continually expirementing with cleat placement, shims, and insoles to straighten my legs out when I pedal. This should keep me from rubbing a hole in my top tube with my knee. I'm gradually increasing the running but still keeping it easy. I'll probably wait another month to begin adding any speed work since it's going to be a long season.

So far I've got flights to Houston and Portland to race with possibly a trip to Germany for World's if the finances work out. Traveling and racing is expensive but it's what I like so it's worth it. I'll be traveling quite a bit this year with races in Texas, Oregon, New Hampshire, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and possibilities in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. Luckily, I can afford to eat better than Ramen Noodles...but not much!

Been a while

So, it's been a while since i've posted. Nothing life changing has really happened, which I guess is a good thing.

I went home for a week around Christmas. It was nice to have a paid vacation and some time to really spend at home. The big drawback was that I started getting sick on Christmas day and it only went downhill from there. I was having major sinus/congestion issues which made me not want to do anything. I stayed in my parents house for basically 4 days straight. At least I was somewhere I could relax and be taken care of. I got some good quality time with my parents so all in all it was a good trip. Because of being sick I stayed home for New Year's Eve and watched football. Me and my dad were planning to wake my mom up with fireworks off the back porch but a rain storm ruined our plans. Maybe next year.

With the start of the New Year comes the start of training back on a structured level. I've still been swimming with the Master's group and seeing continued progress. They'll be having 4 practices per week that I can attend so i'm hoping for good things in the water this season. I finally got an official David Greenfield (owner of Elite) bike fit and the running is moving along slowly but surely. I'm really looking forward to a season for shorter races and higher intensity training over the long, drawn out Ironman routine. My race schedule is still evolving and will see a few changes shortly. I'm having a hard time justifying traveling 7+ hours to Mooseman for a 2 hour race so I will likely recoup what funds I can and opt for a CGI sprint race an hour away on the same weekend. It helps to be able to get free entry into the CGI events. I am also considering the Pennsylvania qualifer for the Best of the U.S. Championship over the USAT Nationals. Stay tuned for more updates.

That's it for now. Later