Main menu:



Site search

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Categories

March 2024
S M T W T F S
« Nov    
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Archive

I am a triathlete (part 2)

I completed my first triathlon today and wanted to get my thoughts down while they are still relatively fresh. The short story is that I had a great time, finishing 23rd out of 53 in my age group (Male 35-39) and 100th out of 450 overall. Official results are here.

Advance warning, this is going to be a long post. After seeing how long it is I’m breaking it into two parts. Part one is a bit about my personal journey to get to today and part two will be my actual race day experience.

Continued from part one

I went to bed about 10pm the night before the race and managed to fall asleep relatively quickly. That’s a bit unusual for me as I usually have a very active mind and have a hard time falling asleep in general, let alone before my first race.  I woke up about 2:15, hit the bathroom (was trying to rehydrate after my long drive the day before), and then lay in bed until about 3am. I wasn’t falling asleep so I got up, puttered around a bit on the computer, and lay back down about 4:15 with my alarm set to go off at 5am. I got about 45 more minutes of quiet “meditation” time before finally getting up. Ending up with 4 hours of sleep and another 1.5 hours in bed relaxing is about as good as I ever do before a big event so I felt pretty comfortable.

I woke up and went downstairs, fed the cat, made some coffee, and started the water boiling for oatmeal. After Su got out of the shower I hopped in while the oatmeal cooled. I had packed my bag the night before so all I had to do in the morning was mix my HEED (calories and electrolyte drink) and load my bag and water up in the car. Breakfast was oatmeal with brown sugar and the peaches I had canned the previous year. Before we left I took a short walk around the yard to relax my mind. The bee balm bloomed while we were on vacation making for a nice garden scene.

Bee balm

Bee balm

Loaded up and ready to roll

Loaded up and ready to roll

We got to the race parking lot about 6:15 and walked over to the race site about 6:30. I felt some nerves because the staff was still setting up the transition area even though it was supposed to be open at 6am. About 6:45 they opened the transition area which is when I discovered I was missing the bar end cap from one of my handlebars. Apparently this is illegal but fortunately the race director had spare bar ends I could use. I found my rack spot and proceeded to unpack my stuff as best I could.

Next I got my race numbers marked on my arm and leg and scouted out the lake and transition area.Lake Gardner at sunrise

A lot of people say that getting the race number marked on them is a very cool feeling and makes the event feel “real” and I have to agree. At that point I felt like I was prepared and I fit in here with the other athletes.

I did a short test spin on my bike to loosen my legs up a bit and to check for any last minute mechanical issues. I reracked my bike and headed off for a visit to the portapotties. I didn’t want to get to the starting line and discover I had made a miscalculation in timing…

There was supposed to be a prerace meeting/announcements at 7:30 so I made sure to warmup my legs running just before that. My plan was to warmup my legs, attend the meeting, put on my wetsuit, warm up my arms at 7:45 and make it to the start line by 8 for my 8:05 swim wave start. Well, 7:30 came and went, 7:45 I warmed up for the swim, 8:00 came and went. At about 8:15 the crowd starting moving to the start line and the race director(s) gave approximately 30 seconds of largely inaudible instructions over a megaphone. At this point I was feeling a bit annoyed as I was anxious and ready to go and now my warmups had been far too early for the actual race start.

Finally, 8:20 something and the first wave of men 30-34 take to the water. I waded in with the rest of my wave and waited 3 minutes for the horn to sound to start the men 35-39. The horn sounds, I wade a bit deeper and dive in from the back middle of our wave of 50 swimmers spread about 4 deep and 10 yards wide.

The first 25 or 50 meters was a bit rough. I was drifting a bit wide right and was trying to concentrate on relaxing and settling into a nice easy stroke while not getting kicked in the head. A few people grabbed my ankles as they passed me and I ran my hand into a few feet as I passed some others. My open water stroke is normally breathe every 3 strokes and sighting every 12. With the turmoil and chaos I was breathing every 2 to 4 strokes and sighting every 3 to 18 depending on how much chaos was occurring around me.

By midway to the first turn I was feeling pretty relaxed and had settled into a decent stroke, despite the fact I felt like I was swimming fast. I rounded the first buoy and immediately ran into a swimmer from the first wave (I caught somebody!) who was on his back doing a very space consuming float and push with the arms wide. Once I navigated this obstacle it was clear swimming to buoy 2. Just as I was approaching the second turn and entering the homestretch I saw a silver cap rocketing by me. I had just been caught by the first under 29 female swimmer who was moving at an amazing pace. A minute or two later another woman passed me. I marvelled at the booming depth charge sound her very strong two beat kick made as she passed me by. I managed to catch a nice draft off of her before she left me in her wake. I adjusted my sighting directly into the sun for the return to the beach. On this last stretch I remember thinking how the hard part was done and I could enjoy the rest of my race. In restrospect I think the swim was the easiest part of the day.

I came out of the water and had run 5 yards up the beach trying to reach my wetsuit zipper while simultaneously pressing my split button on my watch when I realized two things. One, I had come out of the water in 13:30, which is 3 full minutes faster than I had swum a half mile previously. Two, my legs weren’t really working. I had no clue how I was still on my feet.

I managed to get my breathing under control while trying to get my legs working and extract my arms from the wetsuit as I ran into the transition area. My transition went pretty smoothly. The wetsuit came right off thanks to a liberal application of body glide on my calves, shins, and forearms pre-race.  I managed to not tip over while I rolled my powdered socks on and slip into my cycling shoes. I had a hard time getting the velcro straps in place for some reason. I put on my helmet and sunglasses, took my bike off the rack and headed out of the transition area running toward the mount point.

I tried to hit my watch while running over the timing mat, but I must have missed the split button. On my watch I ended up recording T1 and the bike leg as one segment. Later in the bike leg this caused me some concern as I thought I had taken over 40 minutes for a bike leg I thought would take 37 to 39. Only later did I realize I had the entire 2.5 minute T1 added in there so when my watch said 40:00 I was really at 37:30 as I came in off of the bike.

Once I got on the bike I concentrated on starting my legs spinning in a low gear as I rode out of the parking lot and on to the open roads of the bike course. Since I had trained on this course I was familiar with it and had a plan for warming up in the first gently uphill 1.5 miles before finally starting to really push. During that first 1.5 miles I was passed by 5 or 6 people as I concentrated on getting my own legs moving. From my previous running experience I knew how important it was to “run my own race” so I managed to restrain myself at first as I had planned so I could warm my legs up.

I suspect I pushed too hard on the swim leg as my legs were very heavy and burned from the moment I got on the bike. I also wasn’t prepared for the fact that the air on my wet thighs would be so cold on the bike. I’m not sure how much of the “burning” was sore muscles versus the shock of cold air.

By mile 3 or so I had managed to get my breathing under control and ignored my legs. They were working fine despite their protests and I started picking people off on the rolling hills that made up the middle half of the course. I probably passed 20 or so people during this section. I got passed by 3 or 4 people on the long back hill leading up to the final huge descent/ascent/descent combo. I’ve been having problems since I put on my temporary tri handlebars keeping my bike handlebars from moving, despite having tightened them multiple times. I think this, combined with a lack of muscular endurance led to my slowing down.

I managed to muscle back up the final huge hill before spinning my way down towards the transition area. Su was at the corner cheering for me and managed to snap a photo.

While I was climbing the final hill I went through a strange series of thoughts as I stepped on the pedals. I was thinking that I’m never going to do this again and this was much more painful than I had expected while training. I was still pushing hard but I started feeling a bit depressed that I was going to do one tri and quit after that. It also didn’t help that I thought I was 2.5 minutes slower than I actually was.

I rode into T2 and as I approached the dismount point the volunteers were telling me to slow down. I thought I was going plently slow but my speed perception was clearly off. As I dismounted I nearly launched my bike over its own front tire as I applied the brakes. Once I recovered from that I went into the transition area for a relatively quick change into running shoes.

As I was exiting the transition area I remember thinking how my legs felt like they were really just plodding and stomping along. I felt very slow, but since I had trained for the bike to run transition I thought they’d feel better shortly. In short, my legs never really loosened up. My calves were threatening to cramp most of the run and I didn’t really feel normal running until about 2 miles in on the downhill back towards the finish line. Most of the run was a mental battle to keep telling my legs to shuffle forward and telling myself it was all just mental. If I kept my legs turning over I’d be moving at a decent pace and get done quickly.

After passing Su for this photo the spectators cheers carried me the final 1/2 mile into the finish. I stopped my watch for a time of 1:21:15.

My first thought was that time was in the faster side of what I expected to race. My second thought was that my run was slow and this sure was harder than training had made these distances seem. My third thought was that this was ok and I’ll probably race again, although definitely not jumping to a half ironman distance this year.

I grabbed a bunch of water and then wandered off to find Su. The volunteers were great at this race. Other than the transition area not being open and the start being pushed back to allow stragglers to come in the race was well organized and run. I don’t have other data points except for running races and Su’s tri, but it certainly was acceptable to me. Once I found Su I grabbed a banana and a huge tasty chocolate/caramel/coconut  cookie/brownie combo and felt much happier!

I ended up finishing 23/53 in my age group which I am very happy with considering I need to lose 15 more pounds and have only been training for 3 months. If I had raced as a Clydesdale (200+) I would have finished 6th and would have only been 1 minute off of 3rd and a podium spot. My swim was much stronger than expected swimming 1:43/100m versus 2:05/100m in training, but I think I kicked a bit too hard and wasted some energy. My bike was a bit harder than expected but I came in about 19.3mph versus my fastest time trial at 19.8 mph on the same course. My run 8:08/mile versus 7:30/mile for 5k in training turned out to be my weakest event which was somewhat surprising. I chalk that up to several factors. One is the heat and humidity which always impacts my running heavily, plus the fact that I had never swim or bike raced before and my notion of pacing is not nearly as developed as it is when I run. In any case, I was in the top 50% of my age group for every individual event. This is definitely a happy result and something I can build on if I decide to keep doing triathlons.

Now I need to figure out what to do next. I’ll keep marathon training for an October race which will cover my running mileage. I need to decide if I want to jump to an international length triathlon this year or stick with sprints. I’m pretty sure I’d be able to do the international distance but I think I’ll be more competetitive at sprint. I’m leaning towards a sprint tri in August for practice and then trying to find an international in September as the peak of my season.

I think I’ll probably spend some money on a better bike now that I’ve completed one race. I can save about 10 pounds in just bike weight because of tech changes in the past 10+ years. At some point I’ll probably need to buy a wetsuit, but I may hold off on that since I’m still losing weight. I also need to decide if I want to keep mostly self coaching or whether to employ a part time or online coach to help me with the next 3 months. Everything I’ve done so far has been based off of The Triathlete’s Training Bible by Joe Friel and off of information gathered from the very helpful forums at beginnertriathlete.com

I also plan to keep training and eating healthy (lots of local produce now that it’s summer) and hopefully drop the weight to 185 by the end of the race season. If I can do that I feel like I’ll have had a successful running season and be mentally prepared to fight through the doldrums that accompany winter in New England.

Now that my first race is over, I’m happy with the overall experience. The training has been a lot of fun and I genuinely like swimming (especially open water in a small lake/pond) now. The race was harder than I expected both mentally and physically. My end result was better than I thought it would be 3 months ago, but there is definitely room for improvement and I feel a little disappointed that I didn’t go even faster today.

I’ve read a lot of people who have written you never forget your first race, so I wanted to write down these thoughts while they were still fresh. It really was quite the experience and now I can officially call myself a triathlete.

Comments

Pingback from Juddmansee.com » I am a triathlete (part 1)
Time: July 11, 2009, 9:35 pm

[…] breaking it into two parts. Part one is a bit about my personal journey to get to today and part two will be my actual race day […]

Comment from Eric Brown
Time: July 12, 2009, 8:45 am

Well, you did far, far better than me. . . do they allow racing trikes? If not, we’ll never know how much better you’ve done than I could >=o)

Comment from Dan Dunn
Time: July 21, 2009, 8:02 pm

Great post. And congrats on the training and the result. You should be proud.

Pingback from Juddmansee.com » I am a Lobsterman
Time: September 20, 2009, 11:33 am

[…] Yesterday I completed  the Lobsterman, my first Olympic length triathlon (1500 meter swim, 40k bike, 10k run). This race was the culmination of a long summer of training with various ups and downs. The short summary is that it was a gorgeous day, although a bit windy and very hilly. I completed the race in 2:48:38 with splits of swim 31:38, bike 1:21:03, and run 51:47. Complete race report follows. If you’re interested in reading about my first triathlon here are links to part 1 and part 2. […]

Write a comment