Motivating

So this morning during my masters swim group, I was talking to one of the guys afterwards about the triathlon I just completed. He is a marathon runner, who took up swimming over the winter to change things up. He said to me that I was "very motivating to him."

Wait.....what? I am motivating to someone in the world of exercise and fitness? Someone who can outrun me easily. I have never considered myself an athlete. I have to work hard to achieve anything with regards to athletics and my results are finishes and nothing more. It was so weird to hear someone say that to me.

So I am a bit bothered by it. I mentioned it in a Facebook group and someone said that I am motivating to them because I am so enthusiastic. Maybe that's true. So now is there extra pressure for me? What if I DNF? Am I less motivating?

Icebreaker Triathlon Race Report

Pre-Race

Saturday morning and I was up at 5:05am to take a shower and get ready to go. My wife and daughter were going with too, so it was a family affair. We were in the car shortly after 6am for the 2 hour drive to Barron Wisconsin which is about 45 minutes north of Eau Clare Wisconsin.

This small town’s community center is the host of this triathlon. Because it had a pool swim, they are limited to the number of people they can actually take. They offer a “novice” division which was a super-sprint distance, and an “advanced” division which was a sprint distance. I chose to do the advanced distance which was a 400y pool swim, 13.1 mile bike, and a 5k run.

Arriving about 8:15, we walked into the gym where transition was taking place. There was only one small bike rack so people who had kick stands on their bikes were setting up in the middle of the gym, those of us without kickstands leaned our bikes on the wall around the gym. Got checked in, and familiarized myself with the pool and transition areas. Then set up my transition area.

I looked around and there was a wide variety of bikes. Mountain bikes, 10 speeds, road bikes and even a bike with a basket on the front. There was only about 4 true triathlon bikes there, and couple of good road bikes and 1 of those with aero bars. I am riding a road bike I bought last year, but I do not have aero bars on it.

Swimming and Breaking the #1 Triathlon Rule

About 8:50 I headed into the pool area. They were doing the pool swim in the order of bib number and starting with the advanced division so I was to be the 10^th person in the water. They had volunteers counting laps on the far end of the pool for the swimmers. So I sat down in a row of chairs they had lined up for athletes along one side of the pool.

The first wave of swimmers was off. Lane 1 had a high school swimmer who was part of a team and he zoomed through it. The other swimmers…..OMG, it was painful to watch. I couldn’t believe how many people struggled so much with the swim. One just rocked the breaststroke, one did a mix of side/back/front/breast, and others stopped to rest every 25 yards. I can only imagine what some of those looked like in the other division.

Finally it was my turn. I and another guy got into the pool to start. I had commented to my wife earlier that this guy was a swimmer because he was all shoulders, arms and chest. The typical triangle shape of a swimmer. Sure enough once we got started I looked over and he just BLEW by me in the water. I saw him after the event and he said that he was a college swimmer, but had never done the other events. Makes perfect sense. 

So going in to this race, I knew I was going to break the “nothing new on race day rule” in one specific area. I had never worn just my 1 piece tri kit to swim in. I swam with it and my wetsuit on, so I knew I didn’t have any mobility issues, but never swam without the wetsuit. It turns out that thing is VERY draggy. A 400y swim that should have taken me 6:30-6:40 to complete I did in 7:12, but worse is that I had to work really hard just to get that 7:12. So the event that I had the most confidence in started out pretty bad. So I need to buy myself a 2-piece tri suit if I am going to do this again.

Transition 1

So out of the water and into transition. No running as the floors were super slippery. Got to transition and spent some extra time drying myself off. With temps right at 40 degrees, I didn’t want to be super wet heading out and getting cold. I threw on my bike jacket and gloves for my hands. I have always biked in socks so I had to get those on my clammy feet too. So it took a bit to get through my first transition.

Biking and How Roy Tried to Kill Me

We had driven the bike course a few weeks earlier as we passed by it on a vacation. So I knew that the course was rather hilly, especially the first 2/3 of it. I have not done a ton of outside riding, and nothing that amounted to this much hill climbing, but I trusted my training and headed out on my bike which I had named Roy when I got it last fall.

I passed several people right away within the first 2 miles. There was a segment of road between about miles 2-4 that had cracks/bumps that was kinda rough. Nothing scary, but you definitely felt them. I hit one of the bumps and nearly crashed because my hands suddenly fell forward pitching my whole body forward. I quickly recovered and started to try and figure out what happened. It felt like my handlebars had slipped. Sure enough, my handle bars had rotated by about 30 degree! My bike computer was almost unreadable in that position.

So I had to adjust my position on the bike so that I wasn’t leaning into the shifters but rather was on the main bars so that it wouldn’t rotate any more. I also discovered a few more miles into it that I could rotate it back up by pushing on the drop bars. So that’s how the rest of my ride went. Having it rotate it back and forth. So weird that it happened at all.

But I was racing so I just kept going the best that I could. I thought I would watch my power meter more but I really didn’t, I just went by feel. Pushing extra hard on short hills, shifting as needed to keep the pain level in my legs about the same all the time. I passed several more people during the rest of the ride. I wasn’t sure if I had passed everyone or not, but I knew there couldn’t be too many people in front of me.

There turned out to be one last steep hill in mile 12 that was a killer requiring my lowest gear. Once through that it was a short distance through town back to the community center and transition into the run. 13.2 miles in 44:23 just under an 18mph average. I was SUPER happy with that. My goal was 45 minutes and with the hills I wasn’t sure how I would do.

Transition 2

I was the perfect temperature on the bike, and I had drank nearly my full bottle of tailwind on the bike too. So I was pretty well set up for the run. I took off the bike jacket, and shoes, threw on a light long sleeve sweatshirt and my shoes and I was off. I don’t have quick tie laces on my shoes which is something I will need to invest in going forward as well. 1:26 for my transition time.

Running – Well Really Run-Walking

The run course follows the first 1.5 miles of the bike course before turning around and of course there is a pretty good hill you go up and down twice. With my lingering hamstring injury I have not been doing a lot of running in my training. It is by far my weakest area. I have also not done much running after biking.

So starting out this run my calves just didn’t really want to do much. I abandoned the 2:30/1:00 run walk pace pretty early and went to a run walk based on feel. More frequent but much shorter walk segments. I would time some of the walks with steep parts of hills, and run longer on downhill and flat segments.

I passed one guy on the run in the first half mile. I could see one more guy in the distance that I knew I would catch. I wasn’t sure how many people would pass me. When my watch beeped with my first mile time of 9:27 I was shocked. That’s really fast for me, especially with legs that don’t want to work quite right. I stopped briefly for water at the turnaround point, then just kept doing what I was doing.

9:30 for the second mile included that water stop. Then once to the top of the hill, I could start running downhill back to the finish and 9:16 for the 3^rd mile. I did get passed by one guy. The winner of the event is a legit age group triathlete based on google so I assumed that even though he started well after me in the pool, he would pass me on the run.

The run was a bit short of 5k as my watch said it was just 3.00 miles exactly which I did in 28:13, but that pace would have easily set a 5k PR if it was another 0.1 miles longer. I was a bit warm on the run, probably didn’t really even need the sweatshirt, but nothing to the point of wanting to take it off.

Results

When the final results were posted, there turned out to be a total of 29 participants in the “advanced” sprint race. 23 men and 6 women. My final time was 1:25:59 which was good enough for 7^th overall, 7^th out of 23 men, and 6^th out of 18 in the crazy 20-49 age group.

Against the overall field, I had the 6^th fastest swim, the 6^th fastest bike, and the 13^th fastest run.

Final Thoughts

I had set goals of 7:00 on the swim, 45:00 on the bike and 35:00 on the run and I nearly beat all those goals! Being a very small event with a pool swim made this a very comfortable first triathlon to compete in. My training over the winter paid off, and I was able to participate and really enjoy this event. Next challenge is open water swimming.

It was very cool that my family wanted to watch this race with me.

Pie

The tag line for the triathlon I just did was "Tri for Pie" and they served little tiny pieces of pie in transition and then we all got a slice of pie at the end. I didn't see the transition pie until after the race though. My slice of chocolate cream pie was fabulous!

Shakedown Bike/Run

So day before my race, and it has been snowing here today. None of it is sticking to the ground  but still it is 32 degrees and snowing! My training plan has a 20 minute bike ride and a 10 minute run, just to keep things loose and to ensure that everything is working on the bike.

Hard to take pictures of the snow, but the little white streaks are snowflakes

Well that was a muddy mess. Because the ground was wet and dirty I was covered in mud after the quick 5 mile ride and a 10 minute run. I spent more time cleaning my bike than I did riding it. I also wore my tri kit and that had to get washed tonight too.

But everything is good now, and I will finish packing up in a bit. I have everything laid out on the bed and will put it in my transition bag here shortly.

The weather is forecast to be sunny but cold tomorrow with it being in the low 40's at race time. So I have some extra layers packed (bike jacket, bike gloves, long sleeve t-shirt) to wear over my tri kit.

There is an unwritten rule that you shouldn't do anything for the first time on race day. A few weeks ago I had a hitch installed on the family car, and I bought a hitch rack for my bike. We have yet to drive with the bike on the car yet, so that will be the first rule I am breaking. The second is that I have never swam in the pool with just my tri kit on. I wore with the wetsuit in the pool, but never by itself. Not too worried about it.

Last Bike Ride

So my training plan called for an hour bike ride today and I didn't feel like putting the bike back on the trainer, and it was actually halfway decent outside so I decided to bundle up and go ride outside. The bike jacket my wife got me for christmas has been AWESOME! It is just the right weight to keep me warm on these 40's degree bike rides.

I did an out and back on relatively flat roads with the goal of just keeping a steady power. My legs were still a bit tired from the run yesterday but I did quite well and I am happy with my bike performance.

No Energy Run

I went on my 45 minute run today which is just over 4.5 miles at the pace I am going. I just didn't seem to have the energy today to do the run. The 4th mile was just a struggle and for the last 3/4 of a mile I just abandoned the 2:30/1:00 ratio and ran and stopped when I felt like it which just meant shorter run and walk segments.

When I sat down and looked at what I did, it was actually about the same time as I did this route last week, so despite not feeling "fast" today I seem to be maintaining.

Then I happened to notice that I just set a new 5k PR! What the heck?

So apparently I am a terrible judge of how fast I am and how well I do.

Race Week

Well we are now less than a week until my first triathlon. I am signed up for a small town triathlon in Barron Wisconsin. It is a sprint distance with a pool swim and outdoor bike and run. The distances are 400 yard swim (so about 1/4 mile), then a 12 mile bike ride, and a 5k run. Perfect beginner triathlon distance.

We drove the bike course a few weeks ago when we went to the Dells for spring break so I know the course is VERY hilly. The run course is an out and back on the first 1.5 miles of the bike course so it is hilly too. So throwing me a challenge.

My training schedule this week has a couple of swims, along with a run and a bike. Nothing too strenuous, just keeping at it for another week.

Had a bit of a scare this morning during my swim. I felt something "pop" in my neck. But 12 hours later, I am no worse so it appears to be nothing. Whew!

First Brick

My bike ride yesterday deserved it's own post, but it was really just the start of my first "brick" workout. After finishing my 30 mile ride, I then changed into my running shoes and off I went for a 10 minute run.

My coach had "easy run off the bike" in my training plan for today. I am now convinced that there is no such thing as an "easy run off the bike!"

HOLY COW!

Trying to get those things that are attached to my hips to move after all the biking was difficult and it felt really weird. I was sticking to my 2:30/1:00 run/walk even for this so I ran down the street for 5 minutes and then turned around and ran back to the house. When that first 1:00 walk segment beeped on my watch I said "oh thank God!" I was ready for that walk.

Looking at the data at the end, I just ran my fastest mile to date. What?!

Back Outside with the Bike!

Well the weather has finally warmed up enough that I was able to actually ride my bike outside for the first time in 6 months. I got new pedal power meters last week and have been using them on the trainer, but now I get to see what kind of power I do on the open road.

My coach called for a 1:30 bike ride today. I was a bit worried about the roads, but for the most part the street sweepers had been house so the gravel/sand from winter was gone and I had a safer bike ride.

I started with the Shultz road loop but then I had more time to kill so I did an out and back on another road. The route was mostly flat, but did have some rolling hills. It was interesting to see the spikes on the hills, and my legs could definately feel those after a while. My goal was to keep my HR below 160 and keep my power up as best I could. I succeed for the most part. Aerobically I was fine, but my legs sure did start getting tired at the end.

When I last rode outside I rode for just over an hour and averaged 17.5mph over the same/similar route/terrain. Today I just rode for 50% longer and averaged 1.5mph faster! So all that winter training is paying off.

State Meet Day 2

They postponed the start of the meet by an hour to allow people more time to get to the pool. My coach drove down from Duluth and said the road were ok. The roads around the hotel had all been plowed, so it was a much easier drive back to the pool this morning, once I had dug my car out of the parking lot.

I was pretty tired this morning, so I wasn't sure how well I would do in the meet. I had 4 events today. I started with the 200 free. My goal was to break 3:00 and I came up just short at 3:02, but that was a PR! My arms felt like lead during that swim.

I had a couple of short swims with a 50 back and a 50 free and I had a PR in the 50 free which surprised me. 

Then I had the 1650. I have never swam this far non-stop. Ever. I have never done that many flip turns. Ever. I was nervous for sure. I had put down a time of 27:00, but as the day got closer I think I may have miscalculated. It probably should have been closer to 28 or 29 minutes.

I did make it through the 1650. I did all flip turns except for one because honestly I just forgot and ended up too close to the wall. My result was a 28:36. So I shouldn't be disappointed, but I was.

So overall this weekend, I was disappointed in my longer distances, especially the 500. I really thought I was going to do well in that, but just not my day. I wasn't that far off of my PR in any of my events, and did set 3 new PR's. 

I also need to remember, that back in October 2016, I couldn't swim more than 25 yards without stopping, and just 8 months ago I didn't know if I could flip turn for an entire 500. Now today I just swam a mile for the first time! So looking at it that way, I have come a long way. So I think I just need to keep it all in perspective.

Now I gotta change gears mentally and get ready for the triathlon season. I am very excited for that!

Went to a Swim Meet, Leave with an Aero Helmet

This weekend is the short course yards Masters State Swim Meet. So my friend Amy and I headed down to Minneapolis on Friday night because they were predicting a snowstorm in the twin cities this weekend. So we drove down and had dinner at Olive Garden and then crashed at our hotels. The drive was fine but the snow was starting to come down pretty good when I went to bed.

This morning the snow had started, there was a few inches on the car, and we headed over to the University of Minnesota. Parked in the ramp and headed in. Nice and warm inside, despite the weather being nasty outside.

I didn't do as well as I had hoped in my events. I was really hoping for a PR in the 500 today but it was not to be. I did get a PR in the 100 free which I wasn't expecting at all. I also swam a couple of relays and had a good time. 

As is customary during the state meet, after the first day a bunch of met for drinks and dinner at a nearby restaurant. We walked through the 2 feet of snow that had fallen while we were swimming over to Applebees. There one of my team mates sold me an aero helmet that he had. So I tried it on and we decided it wouldn't work very well for swimming.

The drive back to the hotel tonight was scary. I saw at least 20 cars in the ditch in the 5 mile drive from the pool to my hotel. The roads were terrible, and at best there was just 1 partial lane plowed anywhere. Hopefully things are better in the morning. Lots of people didn't come today because of the weather.

Cold Running

Plus 12 degrees air temp, -12 with the windchill. This sucks.

Really good run. I have a good loop that is right around 4 miles. It was too cold to walk too far to start, so I walked about 0.25 miles and then started my run/walk. 2:15/1:15 again this time. I like this pace.

Mile 2 and 3 were nearly identical times at just over a 10:00 mile. So I tried to push the pace a bit on the last mile to get it under 10 minutes. I succeeded and tied my 1 mile PR at 9:45. I also set a 5k PR at 31:00!

That run felt good despite it being really cold and windy. No issues with pain today either. I am going to have to find a longer route to get to 45 minutes now.

Money

I just added up all the money I have spent on this sport for equipment and clothes and such and I haven't even done my first race yet!

Why did I do that?

First Swim with the Wetsuit

Well I got the wetsuit on. I watched a few Youtube videos on the proper way to put on a wetsuit and with some help from the wife, I managed to get it on. Enough compression can make anyone look and feel like an athlete!

Since I got the thing on, I might as well go test it in the water. So I threw a sweatshirt on and headed down to the YMCA with my daughter for her swim team practice. I knew the coach would let me have a lane, so as soon as lessons were done I hopped into lane 5. I had no real plans for this swim session at all, just wanted to get some yards in and make sure the suit fit, and that I didn't have any chafing spots etc.

I took a bit of time to get some water in my suit (I read that somewhere), and then just started a couple of easy laps. It definitely felt constricted at first with my breathing. I didn't panic, it just felt like I couldn't get a full breath of air. I swam 150 yards and things started to feel a little better. I stopped and chatted with the lifeguard for a bit and then started swimming again.

I was just swimming along, nothing fast, just easy and steady. No flip turns, just easy open turns at the wall. After about 300 yards I decided to just go to 500 yards and then stop. When I got to 500 yards I stopped my watch and I had just swam a 500 PR with no starting block, all open turns and not even really trying very hard!

Holy crap! This thing is fast!

So the extra buoyancy, and the smooth surface really makes a difference. One thing I noticed during the swim was that my feet were very high in the water. In fact they felt too high. Like my feet were getting cold because they were out of the water more than in. A byproduct of the extra buoyancy but an interesting sensation.

Wetsuit?

Ummm, I hope the middle is pretty stretchy.

Netflix and Amazon Prime

So I have been watching movies via Netflix or Amazon Prime while I am on the trainer. Searching while on the trainer is not the best way, so I spent some time over the weekend picking out some movies and putting them into my que in both programs.

Today I get on the trainer for my ride and because it is now April 1st, NONE of the movies I chose are still available. Grrrrrr!