Heritage Park Sprint Triathlon

I have heard that weekends are supposed to be for relaxing and recovering from your busy and stressful week.

How about that?

My weekend consisted of the following: FRIDAY - indoor trainer ride, bar shift until 3:30 am, two hours of sleep, SATURDAY - volunteering at the Perry Lake trail race from 7 am-1pm, an hour long nap(which was made possible by a friend picking up my packet for the next day's race), getting all spiffed up to attend Matt Sterling's wedding, having to leave RIGHT before they served dinner in order to make it to another wedding at which my band was performing until midnight, drive home, 3ish hours of sleep, SUNDAY - wake up, triathlon, become temporarily deceased.

I need to plan my weekends better.

This was only a sprint triathlon, so I wasn't too worried about the racing aspect, but I really just wanted to get a good rehearsal on my tri systems in general. When I got home from the gig Saturday night, I took a look at my packet for the first time. They had forgotten to put a wave-identifying swim cap in with the rest of my stuff, so I made a note to show up a tad early to grab one. I then started looking at the rest of the materials...a waiver I had to sign....a sheet listing ranges of bib numbers and the events they corresponded to(there was also a duathlon and team relay that day). I noticed that for some reason, my bib number corresponded to the duathlon, which was run-bike-run(no swim). I became more curious and decided to double check and make sure I was signed up for the correct event. I looked at my registration confirmation and found, to my surprise, that I had either accidentally signed up for the wrong event, or the website screwed up and PUT me in the wrong event. In either case, I was really pissed.

I began to obsess over what I was going to do in order to make sure I got to swim. I contemplated just casually asking for a green swim cap so I could start with my wave and not have unnecessary questions be asked of me. I didn't particularly care if my chip times were way out of whack. Keep in mind that at this point, it is 1:00 am and I haven't even laid out my race gear yet. Whatever...I pack everything, including a checkbook in the event a bribe was needed, and planned to race the triathlon by whatever means necessary.
<Fast forward 3-4 hours>
I woke up feeling shitty, to no surprise as I had gotten almost 7 hours of sleep in the past 48+ hours.  I loaded up the car and drove to the race site, rehearsing and obsessing over my plan to expertly haggle my way into the correct event. I walk up to a tent that appears to contain people who look like they know what's going on. I walk up to a table and very plainly state that I somehow ended up in the wrong event and was wondering if there was anything that could be done. They very quickly pointed to a lady sitting next to a bunch of boxes and paperwork and registrationy-looking things. In a matter of minutes, she had taken down my information and assigned me a new bib number for the triathlon.

....man...I sure am glad I spent all that time obsessing over this interaction. As it turned out, she had spent a good chunk of her morning switching people from the triathlon TO the duathlon, because of the chilly water temps(62 degrees), and was somewhat amused that I was switching the other way.

I then proceeded to head over to the transition areas and began to set up my stuff. This is where my morning got all odd and coincidental. I knew one other person who was racing that day, my good buddy and Bike MS pal, Alan Gore. Turns out he had already set up his transition area in the slot directly to my right. And what's more, the girl who set up in the slot directly to my left HAD MY OLD BIKE! Well....not MY bike, but she had the exact same yellow Specialized Allez that I used to have until the frame cracked and got replaced under warranty.

My old bike!!! Ah, memories.

I next went over to body marking, where I realized that a good number of these volunteers had likely never worked a triathlon before. The girl who offered to mark me appeared to be in high school and when I very casually dropped trou right in front of her, she giggled momentarily before marking me. Don't worry, I had a tri-suit on underneath my pants.

The Actual Race

Yes, I was eventually going to get to the racing part, but my morning was quite interesting and I couldn't resist sharing.

The Swim

I wasn't worried about the swim, and was actually looking forward to testing out my speed on a short course. I had been training in the pool quite a bit and had gotten my 1.2 mile split down to 40 minutes, so I figured I might be able to really scorch a 600 yard swim. I was also not concerned about the 62 degree water, as I had swam 2.4 miles in 60 degree water the previous summer. What I wasn't prepared for was the cold air. It turns out that the air temperature is what really makes you cold if you have a full wetsuit on. It is also the case that my mild exercise-induced asthma does not like cold air. Even before the horn sounded, I was shivering and breathing hard, so once the swim began it only got worse. I couldn't catch my breath for the entire swim, and I couldn't keep my face in the water for more than 3-4 strokes. I ended up doing a whole lot of breaststroke and gasping. About halfway through the swim, I became convinced that I was having the 2nd asthma attack of my entire life(the first being in 8th grade during football practice, after which I received the original diagnosis). I was actually wheezing and having a lot of trouble breathing. Luckily for me, it didn't get any worse and I was able to struggle my way through and reach the end of the swim. Overall, I have to say this was my worst triathlon swim EVER. I was out of the water and crossed the timing mat at 10:13.

My first transition was awkward, fumbling, and disorganized...which is pretty much how my T1's tend to be. I've never rehearsed a transition before so I can't really be surprised. I did finally decide that from now on, I'm just going to SIT DOWN to put on socks rather than wobble around on one leg while I repeatedly fail to put a sock onto a wet foot. T1 time - 5:12

The Bike

I finally got geared up, rolled my bike past the timing mat, mounted up, and took off. I was still wet, and the wind was COLD. My entire body still felt somewhat in shock from my swim debacle, but I slowly began to settle down and establish a rhythm through rolling hills and chilly breezes. About a mile into the bike portion, with no warning, my left foot came unclipped coming through the top of its stroke and violently kicked forward. I didn't lose control of the bike, luckily, but I reclipped it and began to wonder what was up. I tentatively pulled straight up on the left pedal and wouldn't you know it, it came unclipped again. Later upon examination, I found that my left cleat had cracked and broken. Ah, SNAKES! The remainder of the bike went smoothly, aside from the occasional unintentional unclip, and was somewhat hindered by the fact that I had to pedal very tentatively with the left leg and could not really crank with it. Final bike time: 11.5 miles in 38:10...roughly 18 mph pace.

The Run

My 2nd transition went smoothly enough(1:47) and I was off and running...literally. As expected, the legs were all catty-whompus at first. And my toes were numb from the cold still. So basically I could not feel anything below my waist. I felt like I was barely moving, but my Garmin informed me that I was moving at a sub-8:00 pace. Fine by me. I saw Alan on the first out-and-back stretch and we high-fived. I knew I would eventually catch him if it were a longer race, but this was only a 3 mile run. He was quite a few minutes in front of me due to his wave starting before mine, and the fact that he is much faster on a bike than I am. I concentrated on running my race and maybe attempting to catch him before the finish line. By mile 2, everything was warming back up and I was pleased to notice that my legs still had some oomph left. My first mile came in around 8:00, and each subsequent mile was faster. My 2nd mile was a 7:30, and my final mile was just under 7:00. My final run time was 22:20, an average pace of 7:27! The run was my best and favorite portion of the race.

Final time for the entire race - 1:17:41

For a little perspective, my swim split from Ironman Coeur d'Alene was 1:17:23.  Funny how things work out like that.

Alan and I at the finish...I almost caught him!

This was my first sprint distance triathlon ever, and it was interesting how different the preparation for it was. I was more focused on speed than any tri I've ever attempted, and aside from my swim, I was incredibly satisfied by how fast I was.

This is the part in my race report where I usually get all sentimental, wordy, and "big picture" about what the race "meant to me" and I reveal deep, dark things about myself in the process. If you came for enlightenment, I apologize. This was just another race. Happy trails to you all and thanks for reading!