2:27:02.8 Final Time
10th of 14 men age 50-54
19:42.5 Swim (+ run to transition) (5th of 14)
3:15.6 T1 (12th)
1:07:56.0 24 mile bike (10th)
2:02.8 T2 (12th)
54:05.7 6 mile run (12th)
161th of 282 men
204th of 447 overall
Below is my recap as posted on my regular blog:
Fair warning: this is a very long post so I'm apologising in advance. It probably belongs on my workout blog (which you should not bother visiting) but I’m putting it here anyway. Not of interest? Don't read it; no harm done!
I'm going to take a cue from Kellen's blog and start this post with a quote:
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly know how far they are going." ~~ T.S. Elliot
Today I did my first International/Olympic distance triathlon in La Quinta. The weather turned out to be perfect; not too hot and very little wind. It was a goal of mine to do this distance since last October after completing two “Sprint” distance triathlons during the summer. I wanted to complete one of these before the '08 Summer Olympics in part so I would have some firsthand experience. Of course, completing the Olympic distance has been my stated goal but I’ll come clean here and tell the truth. In my head I consider this just another stepping stone toward what I dream of doing: first, Half Ironmans and finally, a full Ironman. (Are these realistic ambitions? Are they possible? Or am I just crazy? Being crazy is a given but the other questions, at least to a selfish me, are worth discussing and answering at another time.)
With this distance being a stepping stone and with other goals this year of completing a half marathon (done in Feruary) and now a full marathon in June, I actually looked past this event a little. Not in the training and preparation but just in my attitude. That, plus nagging little injuries and staying home to celebrate Passover (no regrets) the night before the event, all had their impacts. In other words this was damn harder than I was thinking it would be.
I got up at 5:30am after less than 5 hours of sleep, took care of business, grabbed my bottles from the refrigerator, and got on the road. With an event start time of 8:09 I figured this was more than enough time. It turned out to be just perfect. There was no line at check-in so I got my number and then took my stuff to Transition to set things up.
In case you don’t know what Transition is, it’s an area where you put your bike and the other stuff you’ll need when you transition from the swim segment to the bike and then again when you transition from the bike to the run. (Son 1 referred to it as a metamorphis and I really like that.) If you are compulsive—let’s make that “thorough”—you’ll have everything you need laid out and set up so that you will have fast morphs, er… transitions, and so you won’t have to do too much thinking; a good thing since fatigue can get in the way of logic. I laid out my towel, bike shoes, socks, helmet, gloves, sunglasses, drinks/nutrition, water bottles (to drink and to wash off my feet), running shoes, hat, and race number.
After doing a short warm up run and hitting the port-a-potty, I grabbed my wetsuit, cap, goggles, and a gel (nutrition) and headed to the water. It’s a good idea to visually check out the course, see what kind of markers or buoys are being used, and see if you can figure out some sight lines for when you’re in the water trying to swim the course. I got in to warm up and the water was a perfect 69 or 70 degrees.
The start of the ¾ mile swim took place on the “beach”. Being in the geezer men’s group, we were sent off in the 4th and final wave, 3 minutes behind the women. It’s a bit of a washing machine affect out there in the beginning as all these men run in and start swimming. You bump into people, hit their legs with your hands, squeeze past and through them, and generally just hang in there until everyone starts to spread out. It wasn’t long before we started to catch up with the slower women and run them over. I felt bad for them because they’re just doing the best they can. And no doubt many of them were not really comfortable in the swim phase to begin with and then to have all these people hitting their legs, bumping into them, and even swimming over them could not have been pleasant.
Even out in the middle you run into people who are from your own wave. There’s no line on the bottom of the lake to follow so you have to swim as straight as you can, sighting landmarks or the buoys between strokes. My attitude is always that I’m swimming straighter than anyone else and whoever I’m bumping into has gone off course. I’m thinking, “Come on, dumbass. You’re not swimming straight!” Funny but I never think it’s me that’s going crooked.
Getting to the beach (after just under 20 minutes) was a little different from what I'm used to because there were no waves to catch. When my hands touched bottom I stood up and jogged to the morph/transition area, removing my cap, goggles, and wetsuit along the way. The path was on dirt and not very smooth, especially for bare feet. Turns out this was a sign of things to come.
I got to the transition area, found my stuff, and began changing. I was a little slow and should probably work on that more. By the time I started to jog out wearing my bike shoes with cleats on the bottom and pushing my bike, I was ready to ride.
Once I got to the mounting area I jumped on the bike, clipped in my cleats, and started peddling. When I got out of the park and onto the regular street, I started to settle into the 24 mile ride. It was the first time getting to use my triathlon bike in a competition. And was it sweet! It’s not the best bike out there, not even close. But compared to what I used for the two triathlons last year (thanks Mrs Sladed for letting me use your mountain bike! And then a rented aluminum tri bike) this carbon fiber bike was a rocket. And, after all, how I think about my bike is at least as important as what some expert’s rating of it is. The two laps on the course to complete the 24 miles took just under 1 hour and 8 minutes, which is just over 21 mph.
One thing you do as you bike (and run) is you check out people’s legs as you pass them or they pass you. In most races you get “marked”. They use felt marker and write your number and your age on your calf. As I passed people (and when they passed me) I would check to see how old they were. I play a little head game. If I pass someone younger it gives me an ever so slight boost to my confidence. If a younger guy passes me I just chalk that up to him being younger and stronger. If it’s an older guy or a woman passing me then I have to rationalize that somehow. Or I think, “I better work harder!” With my new bike, and because I started in the final wave, I did much more passing than being passed. The big exception was that some of the elite men who had started 9 minutes ahead had added to that lead and would pass me during their 2nd lap. I just thought, “It’s okay, he’s just some elite stud” as they rode by.
Because the roads were so flat, I found my butt getting sore by the second lap. Eventually I started wishing for some hills so I would have a reason to get out of the saddle and peddle standing up! Once in a while I shifted my cheeks to one side or the other and that helped some. There was no car traffic to worry about, except near the end, when I had to make a left turn to get back to the park. It was a little disorienting and disconcerting to suddenly have to deal with cars coming up on you.
Approaching the transition, I unclipped my shoes from the pedals and jumped off the bike when I reached the dismount line. Jogging back to my spot in the transition area, my legs felt like jello.
The transition went smoothly and I jogged out onto the 2 loop, 6 mile course heading clockwise around the lake. The path proved to be miserable, semi-loose dirt and very uneven. Soon it switched to old, uneven asphalt before it became smooth road at the end of mile 2. From there it switched to miserable sand for a couple hundred yards before the 2nd loop began again. All I can say is that I was hurting and the running surface didn’t help. After being happy with how the bike went, this run felt like the opposite. In fact, it sucked!
I never did get into comfortable form. It was a long 54 minutes. Thankfully neither my right calf nor my left hammy gave me any trouble. It just felt like a long, tough run. I took 1 minute walk breaks after each mile except at mile 5. This was part of my plan if I need to. It’s how I’ve been training for the marathon so I saw no reason to give up this technique. Some would look down at this but I say, tough! It works for me.
The finish was “fun”, with lots of people lining the course. If the announcer could pick out your number he would call out your name as you approached the finish line; a nice touch. I had decided beforehand not to push the last couple hundred yards and try to pass people I was close to. From my one half-marathon experience I knew that I’d slow my recovery from this event by a couple of days if I sprinted to the end. So 3 guys and one woman passed me instead. Frankly, I was just happy to be finished!
You get a medal for finishing and if you’re in the top 3 for your age group you get a trophy. I finished in 2 hours 27 minutes and placed 10th out of 14 (not 6th like I originally thought). It’s not that the place you get really matters. But it is a way to compare yourself with how others did. My goal, first and foremost, was to finish the event without crawling or walking across the line. All things considered, I’d call this event a success.
After all, to me it’s about the challenge: the challenge to do something I’ve never done, the challenge to complete something that’s not easy, and the challenge to train hard and to be disciplined and committed in my approach. Damn it’s fun to be an athlete, even a geezerly one!
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