Keith Bergh

Race Notes: What a cool experience! Definitely plan to go back to Berlin to do it again sometime soon! Great course, great crowd, tons of people! I got to start with the elite athletes (I was taking off my layers before the race next to Haile) which was sooo cool. Good connections. However, it was a blessing and a curse to start in-front of 40,000 other runners with guys going sub 5 minute miles! I went out way to fast. My first 13.1 was excellent - 1:36:26, roughly a 7:25 mile I believe. However, that pace was not going to hold up. I progressively got slower and slower, absolutely gassed by mile 22. I think my last few miles were over a 9 minute pace, I was almost walking. The second 13.1 was a 1:50:09, a little more than a minute slower per mile. Brutal! I am stoked I finished the race, but need to learn from the experience and build my training up so that I don't fatigue in the back 1/3 of the race. Need to do a better job keeping MY pace the whole race! Better training next time for Boston ...

http://berlin.mikatiming.de/2009/index.php?content=detail&id=00000005C9AEE000001D98A3&lang=EN&event=MAL&ageclass=

Race Notes: Overall a pretty good performance that I am proud of. First Olympic Distance. Swim was good except my goggles were full of water the whole swim - that is what I get for using the spare since my main goggles strap broke. Transition was slow but better, and my bike was good. Hard to get into any kind of rhythm with uneven pavement, lots of rolling hills, and some sharp turns. Took any momentum when riding out of the picture. My friggin aerodrink system's yellow mesh thing in the bottle flew out over a bump. So pissed, had to go get a spare parts kit today at FastSplits. T2 was good, slow as always, but made time in the run. Whooped ass as always with that, moving at a great pace considering how hot it was. The last 500 yards I flat out booked it, had to have been close to 11-12mph. I was hauling to catch to guys who were in my age group (turned out only one of them was), and chased them down and passed them in the final 200 yards. Its a great feeling when you know your already spent, and then you dig deeper and flat out give everything you have in those closing seconds. Just missed top 3 for my age group (again), but am confident that won't be the case in my next tri (a sprint, one week after the Berlin Marathon - boo ya).

Race Notes: First triathlon so of course it was important. Overall I was satisfied with my results considering it was the first race I had done, didn't know the course one bit, and just got my tri bike a week beforehand and only had taken it on the road once for 15 minutes, ha. T1 I had wiped down to dry off, shot a gu real quick, and then my bike shirt got stuck over my shoulders as I was putting it on ... which adds up to a lot of wasted time in transition. Oh well ... T2 was better, just struggled to put the bike on the rack, socks on the feet, and tighten the shoes. Will get better with practice. I absolutely destroyed the swim and run for me, just the transitions and biking that I need A TON of practice and improvement on. Can't be happier though about the time for the swim and run ... sub 6 minute run times!? Interval training has been paying off. I think with some practice and some more races, I could be really friggin good at these things.

Race Notes: Not bad for my first half marathon. I ran with a pulled IT band too non-the-less so that didn't help. I paid for it the following days - could hardly move. Oh well, I really pushed myself and am happy with the results