NewBriTri Race Report

Preamble

The whole family drove to Minneapolis the day before. Ran a couple of errands. Dinner at Olive Garden and in the hotel room early.

Pre-Race

Arrived at the park about 640am and picked up my bag then found a spot in transition and got my stuff set up. It was then that I realized that I left my body glide back at the hotel. I met up with Austin who was the guy who gave me my first swim lesson 3 years ago and my daughters former coach. We chatted for a bit. We also ran into Elaine who has been swimming with me in the mornings.

Then it was time to get the wetsuit on. That’s almost as exhausting as the race itself. I borrowed some spray on body glide from the women next to me and put that on my wrists and ankles. Then I walked over to where my family was. It was super windy out and kinda chilly standing around, but not too bad with the wetsuit on.

After the pre-race meeting we were set to go.

Swim

The swim was set up time trial style with people entering the water every 3s or so and had a triangular shape, so just 2 turns. I put myself in the middle of the pack with a bunch of other people shooting for a 15 minute swim. It wasn’t very long and I was off and into the water. It was fairly shallow for a while so some running/wading for a bit and then I dove in. First stroke my hand touched the ground but after that nothing, so I think I timed it about right.

I swam about 100 yards or so, not crowded at all, but suddenly I just felt like I couldn’t breathe. My normal rhythmic breathing that I do in the pool all the time was suddenly not enough air. Not even close. So I switched to a safety stroke for a bit (mix of breast/side stroke) to see if I could catch my breath and calm down. Then back into freestyle. I could only manage maybe 5 rhythmic breaths and then I was back upright in the water.

This continued to the first turn buoy where I found a lifeguard on a paddleboard. I stopped there for a while, just stupefied that this was happening at all. I didn’t understand it, I didn’t know what to do about it either. My HR was through the roof, and I was essentially hyperventilating. I was with that lifeguard for over a minute for sure, I don’t know exactly. I wasn’t really getting any better but I decided to continue on.

But first I had to start my watch! (Doh!)

The leg to the next buoy was the longest on the course. Same thing was happening. Go for a few strokes stop, go for a few strokes and stop. I made it to the next paddleboarding lifeguard at the midway point of the leg and stayed there for a while. Frustration growing.

On from him to the next corner doing the same thing again. I make it around the corner and stop at a kayak for a while. The funny thing is there was a guy who was basically doing sidestroke the whole way and he stopped at every lifeguard too. Apparently he thought my stopping looked like a good idea.

Now a straight shot to shore and I managed to make it to walkable area and slowly make my way to shore. I am totally gassed, HR high, and totally out of breath.

The wind didn’t seem to affect me at all on the swim. There were really no waves at all to deal with, I never got any water in my mouth. Just no idea what set this off.

Completed the swim in 19:32 which was 40/42 in my age group

T1

I walk into transition, I am trying to get my breathing and HR under control here before the bike. I get to my spot and try to take my wetsuit off, the arms came off easy, but I could NOT get my feet out. ARRGG! So finally I manage to get my wetsuit off, my socks and bike shoes on, throw on my helmet and then walk to the bike exit. 3:57 for my T1 time.

Bike

I get on my bike and start pedaling out. I am still breathing really hard and I glance down at my bike computer and it shows 173 for my HR! No wonder I feel like crap. The first mile or so is within the park so nice road and no cars. I get into a rhythm and I work to get my cadence up to where I want it not really paying attention to anything else.

I pass a few people along the way and then about a couple miles in, my bike computer tells me that my fitness performance score is -12. No kidding! I feel like crap, my HR is still well over 170 (it should be in the 150’s). So everything about the bike is about trying to get my HR down some.

I don’t take in much fluid, too hard to do with as hard as I am breathing it seems. We take a turn to the west and then the north, directly into the teeth of the wind. I am not cold, but I am working pretty hard. I am noticing that I am not really putting a ton of power in the bike today and my speeds are down, but it is all I can do with my HR as high as it is.

I finally get my HR consistently down under 170 about halfway through the bike, but this was not going to be a legs and power kind of day, this was going to be whatever my body will aerobically allow me to do.

I do pass a bunch of people on the bike, I only got passed by 1 person which I found odd. We finally turn to the east and a tailwind, but man is that road ROUGH. Thankfully it wasn’t very long and we were back in the park. I pass a few more people on the last mile and see my family just before I head to T2.

Time was 41:57 for 12.6 miles, and 28/42 in my age group. That was surprisingly good for as bad as I felt and KNOWING I can ride much harder than that.

T2

Again I walk through transition, rack my bike and throw on my running shoes and I am heading out. 2:14 was my time though, so not setting any records there.

Run

Still slow, but I am now on the run portion. I knew right away that my 2:45/:45 run walk was going to be abandoned, I had given up on doing “well” in this race a long time ago, I am just in it to finish it now.

So I ran as much as I could, walked as quickly as I could. The STEEP hill at mile 0.4 was cruel. I got passed by a lot of people along the way, but I knew I wasn’t going to be last, and I just wanted to finish. I was really having more trouble than normal breathing. At the pace I was going it shouldn’t have been an issue, but there was a lot about this day that I don’t understand.

I finally rounded the final corner to the finish line. My family was there cheering me on as well as my friend Austin who had finished a LONG time before me.

Run time was 35:14 and 41/42 for my age group.

Total time 1:42:52, good for 39/42 in my age group, 124/144 in my gender, and 169/208 overall.

Final Thoughts

Whether it was just a natural reaction to wearing the tight wetsuit with all the other stressors going on like never having done an open water swim, or something else I don’t know. I will plan to do a bunch of open water swims in the coming weeks if I can find people that are going out. Maybe that will help some.

With this reaction, I am definitely rethinking whether I should do the Olympic distance tri that I have next on my calendar. There is no way I would finish the swim if this happened again much less a 2x longer bike and run.