For my first attempt at a triathlon I feel  as a whole I did fairly well.  It was a lot of fun and I got to meet some interesting folks.  The Sprint was a 750 meter open water swim, a 14.3 mile bike ride and a 5K
run.

On the morning of the race I woke quite early, about 4am, and of course couldn’t get back to sleep.  This didn’t come as too big a surprise because I always seemed to have trouble sleeping before any major event.  Luckily I had picked up a tip somewhere online that this is fairly common and to compensate for it you should try to get a good night’s sleep the day before which I had.

After getting up I went ahead and since it was so early had a light breakfast.  I hadn’t been sure if I would need this but had planned for it anyway and followed the 300 calorie 3 hour before rule.  This seems to be pretty standard  now and worked for me during my half and full Marathon races.  At the same time, I made sure to keep the water intake minimal.  In the past, I  have had a problem with drinking too much water and find myself needing to hit the porta johns far too often during races for my taste.  I kept it to about 8 to 12 ounces up to about two hours before the race start time.   This strategy paid off this time in that I didn’t have to stop once during the race. After eating the time seemed to drag and then all of a sudden it was time to go.

Arrival & Setup

The race site opened at 6 and I planned to get there shortly afterwards.  Parking was limited and I didn’t want to have to park off site and drag all my stuff down the road.  We had stayed a couple miles away and I got there at about 6:10.

After I unloaded the car, I lugged all my stuff over to the transition area so I could set up.  Yet another tip I picked up in my reading was to make a list of everything you need so that you wouldn’t forget anything.  Since my memory could be compared to a strainer, I figured this was probably a very wise thing for me to do.  I had used it to pack before hand and as a result had a boatload of stuff with me and hadn’t forgot a thing.  If anything I brought too much.

I had brought two towels and laid one of them out  first and organized all my gear in the order I would need it.  First was the biking gear.  I put my shoes on front of the towel next to my helmet. In my helmet I put my Friction Defense and my glassed.  (I had two sets of glasses just in case.  One was dark and one was amber.  I wasn’t sure how sunny it would be when I started riding but I knew I would need one of them.) I also filled my Aero Bar mounted water bottle and mounted it.  I knew from training that I took in about a bottle an hour and figured this would be a little shorter so one should be enough.   I had brought another bottle  just in case  but after giving it some thought decided to leave it behind.

Next I put my running shoes with my socks in them.  On top of the shoes went my running hat.  Off to the side I had a light stuffable jacket and a light long sleeve shirt.  My plan was I would put one on in case it was going to be a bit cold on the bike.  Turns out I didn’t need either one.  I also had some sunscreen.  (SPF 50 I burn really easy).  I  didn’t need that either since the sun was still very low in the sky when I started the bike.  I also had a small water bottle to run with if I needed it.  I knew it would be a short 5k and didn’t usually drink during that the length but once again figured better safe than sorry.  Last but not least I laid my other towel on top of my gear to keep it clean.

I was also paranoid about getting a flat.  For some unknown reason that was my biggest worry.  That is to put all this work in and not finish because of a simple flat.  Because of that I took two tubes and four c02 cartridges.  Yes overkill but it made me feel better.  Besides I could help out another racer if need be.

It about 6:30 when I got everything laid out.  Next I left to get body marked and my timing chip. When I dressed I had worn my tri kit under a sweatshirt and pants.  This worked out very nicely and was very comfortable.  It allowed me to quickly change just before the race started as it was just a little chilly.  The temperature was in the mid to lower 60’s.  I had also worn some cheap flip flops.  I will probably do something different for shoes in the future as they got dirty as I walked around and rubbed on my feet.  I kept walking to a minimum so I wouldn’t make my feet sore.  This also made it easy for me to get marked up and stay warm.

After getting marked I still had about an hour to wait.  During this wait I made a point to hit the porta johns several times to make sure I didn’t have to make an unexpected bathroom break during the race.

The Wetsuit Dilemma

The official water temperature the morning of the race was 69.8 F.  For several days prior to the race I had been trying to decide if I wanted to wear a wetsuit or not.  I had asked a couple friends who were swimming the day before and they had mixed responses.  Just in case I had a borrowed one but due to the weather and schedules had been unable to schedule an open water swim with it.  For a little practice I did a short swim in a local salt water pool.  With all that I still  wasn’t sure if I wanted to wear it for the race.  I didn’t have any worries about drowning and didn’t need it for the buoyancy. I figured since the distance was so short any time benefit from wearing it would be lost stripping it. In the end I decided to go for a swim the day before at the same lake and if I tolerated the water fine I would ditch the suit.  I did the swim and the suit didn’t go with me to the swim.

The Swim – Time 26:06

I had done a fair amount of swimming up until this point but I did feel that I was under prepared for it.  I knew I could do the distance freestyle because I had done it several times in the pool.  I thought my limiter would actually be my speed.  Based on my training, I had planned on a time around 17 minutes but alas this was not to be.

After getting in the water a little early and warming up, I lined up for the start.  This was an in water wave start and my wave was last and relatively small.  It was the novices and all kids under 15.  I remember looking at the markers and thinking man that is a long way out.  Why didn’t it look that far from the shore. Then  the race was on.

I started swimming freestyle but just couldn’t get a rhythm.  The lake was a little rough.  I didn’t have anything to compare it to but I would estimate the waves were a little choppy and around 6 inches.  It seemed like every time I breathed I took in water instead of air and  I was quickly being left behind. I decided that I would breast stroke it till I could get a rhythm.  I figured if I could keep moving I would be ok.  I could feel my heart rate going up probably due to the fact that I was having trouble breathing without taking in water.  However, I don’t feel like I ever panicked .  I knew I could tread water if I needed to and would be fine even if I couldn’t get there with a freestyle stroke.

As I kept moving I saw people at various stages of ability.  At one point early on at least one person clinged to a permanent buoy and I believe they were pulled out.  Later in the swim I saw people from an earlier wave  get pulled out.  I’m sure this was just due to lack of ability rather than environmental issues as the water really wasn’t that bad.  I felt at one point the rescue boats were keeping a close eye on me too.  Luckily I didn’t need them.  That being said I did have a close call.

About 600 meters in, my left leg started cramping up.  I’m sure it was due to the horrendous modified breast stroke I had been doing.  Luckily I had dealt with cramps in the pool.  I knew that if I wanted to finish this thing I had to let it run its course.  At first I tried just keeping the leg straight and then flipped over on my back and back stroked a while till the pain subsided.  Once the pain went away I proceeded with my combination of breaststroke and freestyle.

After what seemed like an eternity,  I finally made it to the exit ladder.  It felt great climbing out of water and on to the dock.  I had planned to run but my legs felt like jelly.  I had expected this on the run but not after the swim. This was because I had practiced using my legs very little for swimming to preserve them for the bike and run.  The only thing I could figure was because I used the breaststroke so much that my legs weren’t used to that.  Anyway I gave them a few seconds and forced them to move much like i would off the bike.  Once I got them moving I was in pretty good shape.  Also I wasn’t the last out of the water but it was darn close.

While running I looked down at my watch to see my time.  At first I thought it was 35 minutes.  I was furious with that and figured I needed to make up some serious time on the bike/run.  Later I realized it had been 35 seconds and thought that I must have started the watch wrong when the swim started.  I’m glad I originally thought the time was so high because that helped push me with the bike/run.

The main lesson I learned during the swim is that practicing open water swims is really important.  This wasn’t news to me  but due to a variety of issues I couldn’t get one in.  Going forward I’m going to try to get in at least one a week since the rest of my races this year are all open water.  The second is that I probably shouldn’t wear my tri top without a wetsuit.  For some reason I left it on.  I think it might have contributed to drag and slowed me down a bit.

Transition 1 – 3:07

Going into T1, I was angry with myself and resolved to make up as much time as possible on the bike and run within my ability.  Prior to the race, I had reviewed the times from last year and thought that based on my training, I had a good chance of making the podium in the Novice master’s men category. As quick as I could I got changed for the bike.  I had planned to rinse off my feet but settled for toweling them off.  My layout worked well and I easily found everything, got it on and took off. I will admit it was nice not to have to mess with the wetsuit.

Bike – 42:53

I started the bike like a man on a mission.  I felt the podium was still a possibility and even though I was a bit depressed with my results from the swim, resolved not to give up.  I knew from my training that I could easy maintain a speed in the high teens on a flat course like White Lake, so that’s where I put the needle.  The course is two laps of a little over 7 miles.  The first half lap was pretty uneventful.  i did see another guy lying on the edge of the who had likely wrecked.  Since he was been seen to by several people and looked to be in good hands, I kept going.  That was one nice thing about the course there were volunteers, race support and law enforcement everywhere.

The second half of the lap was a little different.  I was maintaining well in the high teens and my legs felt good.  I could see that I was gaining on people so I kicked it up a notch.  Then I started passing other riders and felt really good.  I even passed someone who had passed me earlier.  He had clearly started out too hot and burned out.  I kept going and felt that I could hold my speed.  I held it at over 20 mph several times.  Regrettably I don’t have a power meter but based on feel and my time on my smart trainer I felt I was probably in the 130 watt range.

The second lap was better than the first.  The passes kept coming even quicker and I noticed that I passed one or two guys that might have been in my age group.  I wasn’t sure because the marking was inconsistent.  For instance I should have been marked MZ but was actually marked with my age.

Once I finished up with the second lap I headed back into transition.  After dismounting, my legs groaned a bit as I knew they would.  They also felt a bit like jelly.  I had expected this and gave them just a second and then pushed hard to shake them out of it.

My take away from the bike is variety in riding.  Due to scheduling a large part of my riding so far has been on my computrainer with Zwift.  I got a nice variety of workouts and a lot of hills while I trained.  Had I limited myself to strictly road rides I would have missed out on the hills and probably several rides because of time constraints.

Transition 2 – 2:18

T2 was better than the first.  I came off the high of passing folks and felt even better about making the podium.  I changed into my running gear and took off.

Run – 23:44

My legs were still a bit wobbly but I pushed them on.  I knew that if I really wanted to place, every second counted.  By the time I hit the road they had woke up and were kicking hard.  I started a little hot around a 7 minute mile and knew that was too fast for me.  It was a fight because the adrenaline was pumping but I managed to slow it down to a little faster than 8 minutes a mile.  I had run a 5k at this pace last November and felt I could hold it.  Once again I started passing people and got more and more excited with each one.  I tried to encourage any I saw that were having trouble. Once or twice I saw some with the right age on their calf and figured they were in my group.

Finally just after the turn around, it was an out and back course, I came up on a guy who was running a bit slower but still maintaining a good pace.  Then I looked down and was amazed.   He was 71 and looked better than people I had passed half his age.  I patted him on the back and said he looked great for 71.  He gave me kudos as well and I kicked on.  Next this guy saw me coming and got quickly out of my way. This was helpful and I thanked him.  This was because runners were coming in both directions and it was a little narrow. As a result often it was tough to pass and keep your speed.  I keep pushing myself to maintain my pace and hit the finish line.  Boy did it feel good. I finished and later realized I had set a 5k PR for myself.

Take away here once again is variety with workouts.  Every week I try to do at least three runs with one being a long run.  Prior to the Marathon I ran in March I would make the short ones a tempo and an interval run.  I plan on continuing that for the season.

The finish – 1:38:08

Once I recovered a bit and had something to eat. I checked the results and at first wasn’t quite sure of how to read them.  My watch said 1:13 but they showed 1:38.  That was until someone I was talking to pointed out my bike and run split had to be 20 mins each since I thought I had done a 35 min swim. That was when I realized that my watch hadn’t picked up my swim properly.  I likely didn’t realize it myself probably because I was still a bit fuzzy mentally from the run.

I then figured out how to read the results and started to get excited.  I was second in my age group.  I had podiumed.  Boy that was a great feeling.

I can’t wait till next time.