Finished my first triathlon of the season Saturday! It had its’ ups and downs but now I have one under my belt. This was an Olympic distance so my swim was 0.9 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, 6.2 mile run. It was a lot of fun with over 100 people from Lifetime Fitness in this race; it was hard to not look up and see a friendly face the entire day and there was lots of excitement since this was the first race of the season for most! Now I know I am not going to win any races but I really wanted to do better than last year…that was my goal.
The swim: Open water swimming is probably my least comfortable event so I normally start in the back for the swim to stay out of the way of the faster swimmers and mass chaos of people at the start. However I waded out to the front and was talking to some friends and didn’t realize how close we were to the start and next thing I know the race started and I am at the front of the pack…uh oh!
Started out nice and comfortable but the water was cold so that took awhile getting used to. The first lap was not fun…there were a lot of people around me so there was a lot of contact and it was hard to get a good rhythm going. About 300 meters into the swim I ran up in the back of someone. I had to slow down and then someone knocked me pretty hard and I took a nice gulp of cold lake water. I was a little disoriented at that point and my heart started racing and I couldn’t slow it down and swim at the same time so finally I decided grab onto one of the kayaks to slow my heart rate down.
It ended up being the right decision in the end but I was pretty disappointed as a watched a lot of the Olympic racers swim by me as I was still trying to get my bearings back. Upset at the situation, I took off again on a mission to catch up to the rest of the group and soon was back with the Olympic racers albeit the back of the group. In the end I finally caught up but it took a lot of energy out of me and I lost a lot of time.
Lesson for the swim: I ain’t Micheal Phelps so don’t start in the front ever again!
The bike: I did a quick transition and took off on my bike. I was more tired than normal because of the swim ordeal. I was still upset at myself so I was pushing hard. I think that helped because I was passing people and last year I remember getting passed a lot. I kept looking at my computer I was keeping a pace more than 21 miles an hour; for me that was great. I met up with 2 teammates (Eric and Holly) and we pushed each other all 25 miles; none of us slowed down the entire time. This was a great part of being on a team; we all train together and push each other! I didn’t know my bike time but I still felt like I was behind b/c of the swim so I needed to keep pace on the run.
Lesson on the bike: Hill workouts paid off and it was nice nobody passed me. I saw a lot of fancy bikes out there and I would really like to get one but still need to convince my exceptionally beautiful and intelligent wife that our kid’s teeth aren’t really that crooked!
The run: My legs were tired but I knew I only had 6.2 miles left so I wanted to keep pushing. Not sure why but my feet were numb coming off the bike and it took awhile to get my circulation back. I was pushing my close to 40 legs as hard as I could go and I kept checking my watch and I was just under an eight minute mile so if I could run that in I would be happy. I didn’t get passed by many people (actually I passed quite a few) on the run so I knew the brick workouts were paying off. Soon I saw the finish line and picked up my pace to run it in. Coach John and a large group from our team were right at the finish line congratulating me! It was a great feeling finishing strong and seeing all my friends there after all the issues I had on the swim.
After all the swim drama I still ended up finishing better than last year and place 13th overall for my age group...and yes there were more then 13 of us racing! Unheard of if you would have known me 2 years ago! Great job to everyone from Lifetime especially those who raced for the first time!
it was a great race and I learned a lot of valuable lessons I can apply to the rest of my training leading up to my Full Ironman in September.
Lesson learned for the entire race: This was only my 5th triathlon ever so the one thing I realized is that this sport is just as much mental as it is physical. You put the hours in but you still need to prepare mentally. I was proud I was able to overcome some obstacles early and still finish with a good race. Can't wait for Cedar Point!
it was a great race and I learned a lot of valuable lessons I can apply to the rest of my training leading up to my Full Ironman in September.
Lesson learned for the entire race: This was only my 5th triathlon ever so the one thing I realized is that this sport is just as much mental as it is physical. You put the hours in but you still need to prepare mentally. I was proud I was able to overcome some obstacles early and still finish with a good race. Can't wait for Cedar Point!
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