May 23, 2010. My first real triathlon. They had cancelled the swim part for the Hopkinton Tri, so this would be the first time that I've ever swam competitively in open water. Kind of nerve-racking, especially considering that this was a .5 mile swim, and I had been focusing on a .25 for the Hopkinton Tri. And I figured I'd have at least a .25 mile open water swim under my belt before this race. Oh well.
A few things worked in my favor, though, so some pressure was relieved:
1. This race was in my backyard. Not literally, but pretty darn close to literally. I grew up less than 10 miles from Atsion Lake, and everything about it reminded me of home. Atsion Lake, like most of the lakes in the area, is a cedar water lake. Meaning, it looks like someone dumped about 1,000,000 tea bags into the lake and let them steep for 20 years. At first sight, it looks dirty, but, being a local Piney, it brought me comfort. I grew up swimming in cedar water lakes, and it felt like I was a kid again. Even though you can't see 2 feet in front of you under water because it's so dark, it was a familiar place. Plus, my parents, brother and nephew were all able to make it, further adding to the feeling of home.
2. The second reason was not quite as psychological. For some reason, there were only 38 people at this race. In years past, this race drew up to 200 people, but not this year. People conjectured as to why (the race director didn't totally have it all together last year; there was a bigger Tri going on in Wilkes-Barre; who knows), but the fact was that there were only 38 people racing. This greatly reduced the tension in the transition area. Everyone had plenty of room to get ready, and there wasn't that feeling of chaos as people run around trying to get their things in order before the race. This really set the tone, and kept me calm leading up to the swim.
I had trained well for the race, but was still very worried. Again, I had been focusing on true Sprint Tri distances (.25, 10, 5k), but this "sprint" tri was .5,24,4. Admittedly, I signed up on impulse because it was a race close to home, and the distances were an afterthought. After signing up, I checked the distances a few times, hoping that I had just misread them...Nope. Add to that the fact that I was fighting some sort of mild sickness since Thursday (probably from over-extending myself the weekend before in Chicago), and I had plenty of mini-demons to fight for this race. The 48 hours before the race weren't crazy, but they weren't relaxing. The 6+ hour drive from Boston and the day full of visiting family around NJ and PA added to my general under-the-weather feeling.
Fortunately, I was able to settle in on my brother's couch at a reasonable hour on Saturday night, and got some pretty good sleep. I woke up at around 7:30, surprised that I was able to sleep that late (oddly, my nerves weren't acting up the night before, I think I was on the border of exhausted, and my nerves were too tired to get me riled up. My nerves did manage to smack me around a little bit while I was getting ready to leave. I was overcome with a feeling that I was late, and that I wouldn't have nearly enough time to get ready for the race. I booked it out of my brothers, and sped to the course. I popped in some Joanna Newsom to help calm my nerves. It actually worked! She's got a heavenly sound, and really put me in a good spot.
As I was driving, I happened to catch myself in the rearview mirror. "Oh Shit", I yelled at myself. For some reason, there was a Fu Manchu mustache on my face. Well, actually, there was a good reason it was on my face. The day before, I had gone over to my sister and her husband's house for a barbecue which they had themed as a "Mustache Bash". Of course, I had to partake in the Mustache-y goodness, so I shaved a Fu Manchu out of the week of stubble I had managed to grow. The only bad thing is that when you're rushing out the door to head to a triathlon, your brain rarely says, "I should probably check to see if there's any odd facial hair on my face". And so there I drove, with Fu Manchu, to Atsion Lake.
I arrived, and saw the area was very empty, which calmed my nerves yet again. I was in a good, mellow zone.
I unpacked my gear, picked out my own bike rack (yes, I had my own bike rack, that's how small the field was) and took a look around. I tried to gauge the competition, but quickly found out that it's tougher than I thought. I assumed that since this was a somewhat unknown race, that only legit triathletes would come out. And the gear these people had seemed to support that. Quality road bikes, all with clipless, and a bunch of Tri-specific gear. Some guys with the pointy aero helmets, and other expensive looking things. I got a little nervous for a second, thinking I was in way over my head. I don't have clipless. My bike's not even a proper road bike (it's a cyclocross). Were these people going to blow me away on the bike?
In any case, I registered, got marked up and took it all in. I kept forgetting that I had a Fu Manchu, so I couldn't figure out why people were looking at me oddly.
The race director gave us some basic instructions, and then it was time to head to the swim start.
I chatted up a guy from the Princeton area who had been doing triathlons for about 20 years. Damn, that's a lot of experience. We waded in the water up to our feet, just hanging out, getting ready for the deep water start. I hopped out quickly to say hi to my parents, brother and nephew. Gave my 7 year-old nephew a high-five, and I was ready to go. I headed back into the water, and moved closer to the start.
The race director, seeing that everyone was in the water, figured everyone was ready to go, and started a countdown for the start. Problem is, not everyone was ready, and we certainly weren't all at the same point in the water. Some people yelled and told him to stop the countdown, but he either couldn't hear, or chose not to hear. And before most people knew it, the race had started. Everyone scrambled to get going, and soon enough we were all headed out to the turnaround buoy.
This being my first open water race, I was a little concerned. With a bunch of things. For one, sighting. I had practiced sighting a very small amount in the couple of open water swims I was able to do during training, but they weren't concerted efforts. I had to put some more focus on sighting this time. I cheated a little bit. I looked up occasionally, but was fortunate enough to have someone right next to me that I could use to gauge my direction. Of course, that's not a foolproof system. I certainly zig-zagged too much, and bumped into a buoy because I wasn't being attentive enough. Something to work on for next time.
Getting through the swim was my 2nd concern. I had been training well, but was definitely intimidated. I figured I would've had a .25 mile open-water swim under my belt from my first Tri, but as I mentioned, they cancelled the swim for that triathlon. So I was going in fresh. I had a little trouble catching my breath initially, but eventually settled down, and focused on getting into a comfortable zone. Bi-lateral breathing was out the window. I can find my rhythm with less effort by breathing on one side. I settled into a good pace, and tried to swim smart. This was 1/2 a mile of open water swimming. No point in underestimating the distance and being totally spent by the time I finish.
The swim was pretty uneventful, and I got back to the beach in the middle of the pack (remember, this was only a 40 person race...total). The breathing-on-one-side was now going to take revenge on me. Swimming while breathing on one side for 16+ minutes completely throws your balance off. Something you don't realize until you stand up and start running out of the water. I felt like I had done about 100 of those "dizzy izzy"s, where you put your forehead on a baseball bat and run around the bat over and over. I may not have been running sideways, but I sure felt like I was taking a very large arc over to the transition area. I got to my bike, and starting changing for the bike. I was more or less leaning on the rack while putting my socks on because I was so off-balance. It's amazing how much concentration is needed to put your socks on when you're tired and dizzy.
Finally got myself together, and was headed out to the road. Out of the park area and onto good ol' route 206.
Right away, i passed a couple people. I was able to get up to speed pretty quickly, and was still burning off some nervous energy. I actually thought that maybe I was going out too strong, and that I needed to hold back for the remaining 24 miles, but I just kept going, knowing that I'd settle into a good pace.
I tried to focus on keeping a high cadence, rather than getting into a high gear and sluggishly cranking out the strokes. In hindsight, I think I may have been to wary of this, because my form isn't perfect at high cadences, and I was teetering between a comfortable rate, and an erratic rate. If I had bumped up a gear, I probably would've been better off, but I was afraid to fall into too slow of a cadence.
A couple of guys passed me within the first 4 miles, but I managed to stay within reach for a while. We actually jockeyed for position a couple of times, which is crucial to keep yourself from falling into a trance, pace-wise. the roads were fairly smooth. Certainly not freshly paved smooth and silent roads, but pretty reasonable flatness, with few bumps, cracks, holes.
I passed another cyclist, as did the other two guys who I had been jockeying with. Still felt pretty good. One odd thing, though. Snot. My nose was running like I had a cold. I had to clean it a bunch of times. Pretty odd, but I think it's actually a pretty normal occurrence.
The course was fairly flat, except for a few short, gradual hills. When I reached down to crank through the hills, my legs didn't respond as quickly as I had hoped. They were getting a little sluggish. I was sure I was going to get passed, but I guess I hadn't slowed too much (or, anyone behind me wasn't going to make a move on the incline).
I got to the turn onto the final long road of the course, which brings you just about back to the transition area, and I knew I had to pick it up a bit. I gained a bit on the two guys that had passed me earlier on. The road was very flat and smooth, and I felt like I was able to get some good speed going. Near the end, I passed a guy in a pointy helmet (which always feels good). I got close to transition, and was probably 100 yards from the two other cyclists.
The dismount line came up quickly, and I had to brake hard to get off. Not very graceful. I ran to my rack, threw the bike on, and was off. I didn't yet have bike shoes to change out of, so I could just go.
I needed some water, certainly, and there was a station right at the beginning of the run. I took some and was off into the trails for the run. I must say, trail running was really cool. A little tougher than road running, but worth it. It was a very winding trail, with mostly packed dirt and pine needles as the ground cover. There were some parts which were gravel, but most of the course was a straight-up trail. I got passed by a guy who was nice enough to give me some words of encouragement: "Wow, you're a big guy...good job".
He almost took a wrong turn off of the trail, but I yelled up ahead to keep him on the path (he was only a few yards in front of me, so we actually both negotiated the turn together. I had noticed the arrow pointing left, but he had missed it).
The trail got very curvy, and was like an ATV course. The turns were tight, with high banks, like a mini-Nascar track. There were miniature rolling hills/bumps, which made it tough to keep a good rhythm...for me at least. I quickly got passed by a guy who would end up with 6:45 splits on the run. He was chugging along, and had no problem taking everything the trail threw at him. The trail curved and wound, not letting you see more than 50 feet of the trail at a time. There was one straightaway, which was thick, uneven white sand "road" which was a bitch to run through. It was tough to figure out where the most firm part of the trail was, and even if you found it, it would quickly become very very loose. The trail veered off of this "road" but kept going in the same general direction of the road. After about a quarter mile, you meet back up with the road, but take a quick 180-degree turn, so that you're running the opposite way back down the road. Which means that you're running towards your competitors that are only slightly "behind" you in time. An interesting motivation. The course turns off the road again, so you're not actually running past any of your competitors. As quickly as you saw them, they vanish just as quickly. Now it's time to head back to the finish. The course takes you back onto the same trail you ran earlier, at least for a little while. Now, you're passing people on their way out to run through the woods. Finally, the woods start to clear and you open up into a nice picnic area. The finish is close, but you still can't quite see it. Your only guidance at this point are some yellow ribbons tied to a few trees, which give a general direction to run in. Then, out of nowhere, the finish line popped up, and the race was all but over.
I think I crossed with a little too much left in the tank. I felt good, though. I met up with my parents, and stuck around to see the other people finish. Small crowd, but still a really neat feeling. Some light rain sprtized on us, cooling everyone a perfect amount.
I stretched, walked around, and waited for the results to come in. They had apples, bananas and bagels for everyone, which were perfect post-race foods, as usual.
My swim was 16:10 for 1/2 mile.
My bike was around 1:08 for 24 miles
My run was 31:19 for about a 4-mile run
It was enough to earn me 3rd place in my division (which is not tough when there are only 40 people total in the race). Still, I'll take it.
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