I Tri 4 Sixty Five Roses

“Oh,so you are a triathlete, have you done a real one?”

Have I done a real one? WTF is that supposed to mean. Have I done an Ironman? No. Does that make me not a real triathlete?  Is the Ironman the only distance out there?  When I am riding with road racers and they ask me that question I always follow it up with, “Have you done a real road race?” Naturally, they look at me blankly and ask, “what do you mean?” Have you done a three week road race covering thousands of miles? Are you a real road racer if you haven’t? Of course not, that is crazy. Same thing with the Ironman.  They are both the pinnacle of the sport.  They are both huge athletic achievements, just to get through them.  Winning one? That is another level. Let’s not be shy here. I am a middle of the road, age group, triathlon hobbiest.  I do it because I love it. Breaking the top three in my age group would be a huge accomplishment. I can’t run a 7:00 minute mile (yet), I can’t average 25 miles per hour on the bike, and I swim like a poodle. But I love it. I love the idea that I can go on an adventure powered by my own two arms and my own two legs.  I enjoy the health benefits and I love feeling fit. And while I haven’t done a “real one”, I am a triathlete.  I just think it is funny that people on the outside of the sport don’t really get it and people in the sport feel like we are getting away with something because this is so much fun.  So what is stopping you from competing in a triathlon? 

What a weekend! Saturday morning was the Birchwood Road Race in Square Lake. My friend Ryan and I jumped on the bikes at about 8:00am to ride out. The plan was to cruise along the Gateway Trail out to the race site, take it easy and then cruise back. It would have been perfect distance with not that much effort. Well, I got us a little bit lost. Well, not completely lost. We arrived on the race course earlier than expected and then had trouble finding the registration. While the distance around that area was not far, the hills made it more taxing. Double backing basically makes you do the hills twice.  In the end, my easy 40 ended up being a good 58 miles.  When I got home I was really questioning whether or not to do the race.  My legs were tired, but not necessarily dead.  As the afternoon went on I realized it was not a good idea. My wife would not be there with me and the idea of jumping in the water to swim a mile with tired legs was not that appealing to me. So I made the call - don’t race. It was tough because I did pay for the race already and I was excited to race, but in the end I didn’t feel comfortable doing the race. 58 miles the day before a race is not the ideal race prep. On Sunday I took Grady for a ride in the Burly and was able to confirm the state of my legs. They were tired, but not sore.

So here we are, back to looking forward to the next race, which is on the 12th of July. Another Olympic distance. This week I will need to make a quality deposit into the fitness bank. The weekend will be in Nebraska. Running and swimming. This week must involve a good strong bike at some point, ideally on Wednesday in Duluth. I am not going to beat myself up about not racing. I got in a good ride that I needed for my long term goals.

Ah, race week.  Full of anxiety. I have a lot going on this week and weekend. Mainly the weekend. The Birchwood Road Race is on Saturday. I am not racing, but I am volunteering. We are going to ride out to the race which is about 20 miles away. Then I will be standing for about 3 hours or so and riding home. Then the Rochesterfest Triathlon on Sunday.  Too much activity the day before a race? Probably. I did try to change to the sprint distance, but the race director told me that I should have tried 2 weeks ago and I should have known that. Umm…ok…can’t wait to race your race which I paid $60 for. What would happen if I just jumped in the sprint distance? Are they going to kick me out? Probably not. I will still do the Olympic distance, but I might not be pushing it.

Next week will be a complete blur. Recover on Monday and Tuesday. Up to Duluth on Wednesday, hopefully get in a ride or run, then back to the cities to pick up the fam as we head out to Nebraska for the fourth for some relax and lake time. Then back to the cities on Sunday and up to Grand Rapids on Friday for the Timberman Tri. Then breath for a weekend and off to Colorado.

Speaking of Colorado. I can’t wait. I am so excited to be heading back to the mountains. I am still undecided about which bike to bring. Road bike for the amazing road riding or mountain bike for the pretty good mountain biking. If I we were deeper into the mountains, i.e. Winter Park, Steamboat, Breck, I would be bringing the mountain bike for sure. But since I am on the Front Range, I might get more out of the road bike. Peak to Peak highway rocks, riding up into the park is awesome, and I can take off from our accomodations pretty quick. What to do, what to do.

Most people think cyclists are dorks and part of some weird counter culture where we are all trying to look like pros. The gear, the colors, the lycra, and the hairless legs. True, we are different, but there is a method to this madness. Check out this article and you will all be able to understand the reasoning. There is structure to the etiquette. But let’s not get all weirded out by this. All sports have their own issues, cycling just has a lot more lycra and quite frankly, that makes people nervous. Why be weirded out by grown men in lycra? Seems natural to me…

So I wrote this report last week and when I went to publish it, the internet crashed. I have not had the desire to redo it until today.

Swim: The water was cold. Simply put. I took a few practice strokes before the race and it was like a constant brain freeze. Other than the temp of the water, the swim was pretty uneventful. I did kick some guy in the face, which I regret, but sometimes you can’t see who is behind you or how close they are or which side of the face you want to kick them on. All joking aside, I felt bad, but that is tri swimming. I finished in 30:09, my 2nd fastest Olympic swim.

 T1: My wetsuit has a huge hole in the lower left leg, right near my calf. I have been trying to overlap the neoprene, but that doesn’t work so well. So I put some duct tape on it. That worked great in the swim, but it took away all the elastic abilties of the neoprene. I couldn’t get that part over my foot! I struggled and struggled and struggled and finally got the damn wetsuit off. 2:44 was my final T1 time. Aargh!

Bike: I felt terrible at the start of the bike and even worse at the end. My legs were very tight when I started the ride, but I was going fast. At the end of the ride my back was killing me and I had to sit up a few times to stretch. I think that if I was feeling good the whole ride I would have had a better time. Even still I turned in my fastest bike split in a tri to date on a hilly, windy course, where I didn’t feel so good. 21.1 mph and time of 1:13:50. Best ever.

T2: Nothing to speak of here. Couldn’t have been faster, but I was able to turn in a time of 1:03. My goal was 1:00. I am ok with 1:03.

Run: I felt ok at the start of the run. The run began with an uphill woodchip run of about a quarter mile. That was a tough start.  Once I got up to the top I took stock of how I felt.  Overall I felt ok.  I slowly began to increase my pace and by the 2nd half of the run I was running much faster and the legs were starting to open up a little. I finished with an 8:06 per mile and a time of 50:15. That was my best 10k ever in a tri or stand alone.

My overall time was 2:37:59. I am, as always, stuck in the middle of my age group at 5th place out of 10 and 51/153 overall. For my first race of the year, I’ll take it.  I am definitely progressing, albeit little by little.

Next up is the Rochesterfest Triathlon on Sunday of this week. It is an olympic distance, but I am considering changing that to the sprint distance. They offer both. I am putting in a longer ride on Saturday out to the Birchwood Road Race so I might be a little tired on Sunday. I am up in the air right now about which distance to do.