Race Week
{FEEL FREE TO SKIP SOME/MOST/ALL OF THIS--Most of the Tuesday-Friday stuff is complaining how about how crappy I felt and how real life got in the way of triathlon. I apologize for the mixed tenses as well. I started writing some of this before the race, and finished it afterwards.}
We got back on Monday from spending about 10 days out on Long Island (my wife and kids were out there all of August and I was going back and forth), where I ate way too much, but had the chance to swim, bike and run all throughout August, including some rides out to the Montauk Lighthouse which was were always nice (except for that stretch on 27 coming out of Amagansett, which can get really boring).
Tuesday - kind of tired, but slept in. Kids were anxious with the first day of school, and kept waking up the night before: Lauren was up at midnight and again sometime a few hours later. Jack lost his tooth at 4am and walked into our room. I'm hugely appreciative that Kathy got out of bed each time to take care of them and let me sleep. I got home from work and swam for 30 minutes, biked for 30 minutes. There is definitely something wrong with my trainer, the resistance level keeps changing randomly--for no apparent reason, it'll just crank up the resistance all the way without any warning. I don't think this is what caused my leg soreness, because the workout wasn't that long, and I would stop when the resistance got cranked up and reset the trainer. I dunno, I don't think that's what caused it this week.
Wednesday - I was up late Tuesday night until about midnight with work stuff. Lauren was still not sleeping well and woke up around 1am. I woke up at 5:45am, after not much sleep. Chest hurts, and not sure why. Went for the solo run, and chest didn't get worse, so I'm hoping it is more like a muscle pull--instead of some horrible lung thing from inhaling the fumes from whatever I was using to fix the tears in my wetsuit last night. I hope that I am not coming down with something--maybe just not enough sleep, but there is a little tickle in the back of my throat. There are a bunch of people in the office that are sick that I am desperately trying to stay away from. Felt okay, but not great, during the Wednesday night swim, and it was good to see everyone from AGTC again, even if Richie pointing that I was the last one on our team to do a half iron. Thanks Richie--not like I didn't put enough pressure on myself...lol.
Thursday - I woke up a little late, trying to get more sleep and went for a ride, per the planned workout. Kids are still not sleeping well and they are waking us up (again, thankfully Kathy is getting out of bed to deal with the kids…I rationalize it to myself that this is okay because they are calling for mommy, not me after all.) My legs were more sore than I had expected or hoped. Went to work, left early to get bike looked at because it was making some unwelcome noises during the ride. Apparently I needed new bearings as well as some adjustments and cleaning. I'm still not feeling well…Jack had a fever and passed out at 5pm. I think I am coming down with something, and I tried to go to bed early.
Friday - Went to bed a bit earlier than usual, woke up as normal. Jack woke up crying and dry heaving around midnight last night, woke me up from a dead sleep. He was a trooper all week though, clearly not feeling well, but not complaining that much (Kathy might tell a different story though). I'm still not feeling great, and I'm more sore than I would have hoped given the lower intensity and volume of this week. I am really not sure why.
Saturday - Getting excited…day before race day! Slept a little bit better, but Kathy got sucked into watching Life of Pi and I went to sleep with the TV on while she was watching. Jack still not feeling great and woke up us in the middle of the night again. Went for a pre-race workout when I woke up. Got on the bike and felt ok, not as sore as yesterday. Came home and transitioned as quickly as possible and ran down to the river for a 15 minute run. Came back just as the pool opened and swam for 20 minutes.
I ate breakfast with Kathy and the kids (big breakfast as prescribed by Mike). Side note here: I'm amazed that they are supposedly all related, but they are so different. Lauren had pancakes, Jack ate a bowl of hash browns and bacon, and Emma wanted Mac and Cheese at 10am in the morning. I then went to get my bike looked at the bike shop again as the rear wheel was making noises. They ended up taking the hub apart, cleaning it and rebuilding it.
I drove to the race site to check my bike into transition. The drive was pretty quick, and I had a chance to drive a little part of the bike course on the way there. I racked my bike--there were only a few bikes there, and only two on our rack--and it happened to be right next to me.
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| One of us is racking our bike the wrong way--maybe it's me, but I was told to rack with the front wheel facing you, so I'm hoping it's not me. UPDATE: The other guy did it wrong...USAT Ref said that the wheel is supposed to touch the ground on the side with your sticker facing you. It was amazing how many people were racked the wrong way. |
After racking my bike, went to look around the expo, and walked down to the beach where they were just beginning to set up. Water was pretty calm, and I was hopeful that it would be the same the next day.
Then I went to drive the rest of the bike course--it was reasonable, with some rollers, but with one really, really big climb a couple of miles after you hit 9/9a coming out of Croton Park. Holy crap, it's steep and long. I'm not sure, but I think it's pretty similar to the Ranger Station Climb in NJ, maybe even just a bit longer. And then there's another climb after that before the turnaround.
Got home, ate dinner (hot turkey sandwich, and bites of stuff my kids ordered), and then went to lie down because I still felt crappy--headache, nose was beginning to run, and my legs are inexplicably sore given how little volume or intensity there was this week. Got a bunch of texts from AG teammates, other friends, and a voicemail from Mike. Returned them all (except for the emails and calls from work…wtf, it's Saturday), and then went to google "Why do I feel sick during my taper"…because I felt the same way before the NYC Tri. Apparently I'm not alone in feeling sick because there were a bunch of hits with people writing posts/articles about feeling sick as a result of the taper. At this point, I tried to push all the negative thoughts out of my mind, and there were quite a few, and tried to think that I almost felt this bad before NYC and ended up having a pretty decent race.
Tried to picture running down the finishing chute as I went to bed.
Race Day:
I never sleep well before a race, and this time was no different. I kept waking up, either on my own, or because of one of my kids. I woke up at 3:30am, had an english muffin with peanut butter, filled my water bottles with Skratch Labs, got changed, grabbed my race backpack and headed out.
The drive to the race site was quick, took around 45 minutes or so. Got there just as transition was about to open, and I had a few minutes to kill before we were allowed in. My stomach always gives me problems pre-race, and it was no different this time so I won't go into any details here. Picked up the timing chip, which was this disposable thing that I had never seen before. It's basically a strip of paper with a neoprene or foam backing that you wrap around your ankle and tape close--I didn't think it would stay on for the whole race, especially through the swim, but it did. Set up transition pretty quickly and had a fair amount of time to relax.
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| I think that this is always one of my favorite times of race day, when the sun is just beginning to rise…this and the finish. |
The schedule provided for a practice swim, but while the announcer was announcing the closing of transition and the timing of the opening ceremony, he never really mentioned swim practice, with the result being that most people didn't practice swimming. I basically got in far enough to start swimming and take a couple of strokes before getting called onto the beach.
I wish I still had my camera with me at this point, because I'd love to have a picture to show how shallow the water was. It was pretty clear how shallow the water was when people were walking past the first buoy, almost halfway to the second before the water got deep enough to swim. The Toughteen's race was first, and it went off without too much ceremony. Their swim course was only out to the first buoy, so they basically walked all the way out to the turn before swimming.
Swim:
The start of the race came up pretty quickly from there--first three waves went off and then it was our turn to get into the corral and then spread out at the water's edge. They gave us warnings at 2 minutes, 90, 60, 30 seconds and then counted down from 10. Short of anti-climatic, because we all had to walk a fair amount. Some people ran into the water, with knees high. I walked in, not wanting to go anaerobic so early into the race. As it turns out, I don't think it cost me much, since everyone basically slowed to a walk as the water got deeper. There was lots of contact early on, and at and just after the turn buoy, and it was difficult to settle in to a rhythm until after the turn where things got spaced out a bit more.
They had also set up the course as follows, with a yellow buoy and a sailboat marking the turn. However, instead of the straight line depicted below, they set up the outbound leg with a curve inward (left to right into the triangle). I imagine if someone swam buoy to buoy, they might have ended up swimming closer to 1.2 miles, but I decide to swim a straight line for the sailboat, as did most of the people in my wave. The course was probably short anyway, but I ended up swimming an olympic distance swim according to my Garmin. That combined with walking for the first 100 yards or more, led to a much faster time here than I was anticipating. I was hoping for around a 38-40 minute swim for 1.2 miles, and was shocked when I got out of the water and my watch said 23:35. After a sub-15 minute swim at NYC Tri, and the swim at this race, I know that I'll be in for a surprise when I have to do a non-current assisted, full specified distance swim leg...there's no way this was the full 1.2 miles.
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The picture above also shows how shallow the water is all the way out onto the course--look past the woman in the foreground to see all the guys who have started walking already. |
Lessons learned and things to work on: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Aside from taking a more direct line to the turn instead of following the buoys (After telling people what I did, I've also found myself explaining that IT'S NOT CHEATING...they just said to keep the buoys to the left, they never said how close to the buoys you have to swim and there was no restriction on how far to the right you can go), I focused on sighting more than I have in the past--GPS track shows that I swam a relatively straight line out and back which was gratifying. I need to work on settling into a smooth rhythm earlier in the race, I felt like I was swimming pretty fast and smooth on the way back, but it was definitely choppy on the way out, using alot of effort.
Swim Time: 23:35 (20th M40-44, there are either 87 people who started, or 105 people in the division per the official race results)
T1:
Pretty short run from the swim exit to the transition area. We were the rack across from the only tree (which was very hard to miss) in the transition area, so the rack was easy to find. Overall pretty straight forward, and about par for T1 for me. I should practice to see if I can improve on this for Westchester/next year.
T1 Time: 2:18 (14th M40-44)
Bike:
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| Trying to decide on a caption: "Critique my aero position" or "How do I photoshop my gut out?" |
As for the wind, while it was pretty calm during the swim, it got pretty windy while we were out there on the bike. I could definitely feel it move around my front wheel when I was in a crosswind, and on the second loop there were times I felt like I was working pretty hard and not going that fast. I was wondering if it was just me being tired and slow, and not really thinking that it was the wind because the swim was pretty calm, but sure enough, when I was on the line for the BBQ after finishing, I noticed that there were white caps on the river and some real surf/swells(?) breaking on the beach.
Sometime during the second loop, it sort of hit me where I just felt crappy. My throat was sore, and just felt drained, the kind of tired that you feel when you've been sick. I tried really hard to not think about how painful the run was going to be ("Just bike until you are done biking..."), but will confess that I wasn't always successful. I really liked that the bike course was completely closed to traffic, but don't really like loops, knowing that everything hill that you climb, you have to climb it twice, and I would sometimes think ahead about how much energy I would have to save to get up the hill the second time. I did try really hard to stay in the moment though.
Lessons Learned/Things to work on: One thing that worked for me this time, that I haven't done before was that I set my Garmin to set off a time alert every 10 minutes to remind me to take a sip of water (and eat every 30 minutes). I drank 3 bottles worth on the bike this time, when in previous races I would have water/energy drink leftover.
I still need to work on pacing, especially going up hills. I tried to spin up the hills in the small ring and to put out a smoother, steadier effort, to save my legs for the run, but whether it was because I overdid it on the bike or some other reason, I felt like crap coming off the bike. Hip flexors, quads and calves were all barking.
Bike Time: 3:04:48 (36th M40-44)
T2:
Not much to say here, except that I could probably be a bit faster with some more practice. The fastest guys are getting about in about 1:10. I took a little extra time to but on more anti chafe on my heels so I wouldn't end of with blisters again like in Quassy.
T2 Time: 1:53 (19th M40-44)
Run:
This was brutal. I ended up walking much more than I would have liked, despite having planned to have to walk at least a little bit around the aid stations and the worst of the hills.
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I'd mark all the places where I walked...but there were too many to count |
A bunch of the course was on trails, and I'm not really used to trail running and probably went a bit slower there than I could have gone because my shoes didn't have much of a deep thread and I was just a little cautious with my footing, but I don't want to overstate it. For the most part, it wasn't a big deal. The trail sections were nice though, especially since they were almost all in the shade. The flip side about all of the climbs is that you get/have to run down all of the hills, which is usually a good thing for me since I use it to pick up a little speed and recover. Ever since my hip stress fracture in 2012, I've tried to be more careful about running downhill, and think I'm at a point where I can get down most of the hills in Central Park alright. I've never really had to run down hills that were as long and as steep as the ones during Toughman though. I probably wore the wrong shoes today given the trails, but perhaps also because of the distance and downhills. I have blisters on my big toes and I'm pretty sure I am going to lose both my toe nails from my second/long toes at some point soon given the fact that they are bruised/bloody underneath {I'll spare you guys the pictures of my feet}.
I tried to do as Mike suggested, and break the race into quarters. As it turns out, I think my first mile or so were among my fastest, even though I was trying to hold back. This next part might be in the wrong order...there are many things that I think I remember vividly, but the whole thing kind of blurs together.
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| That's the Croton Dam in the background. I would have to run to the top of that shortly. |
I do want to say that what I really liked about the whole experience was just how friendly fellow triathletes are, even in the middle of the race. I found a couple of guys that helped pace me up the switch backs up the hill to the dam, and they were chatting the whole time. {Side note: pretty amazing story that one guy told me while we were running up the hill, but one guy apparently lost his bike off his car while getting to the race site. The bike was totally demolished and this shop in Greenwich (I think) set him up with a brand new tri bike as a loaner...no credit card info, nothing. I think Richard Izzo of Toughman made a call on his behalf, but still pretty amazing. Earlier that morning, there was announcement while we were setting up in transition asking if anyone had an extra set of race pedals, which turned out to be this guy, which make sense now. I remember wondering how the heck someone forgets to have race pedals on their bike the morning of a race? What's even more amazing was that some guy actually had an extra set. I mean I have an extra pair of goggles in my transition bag, but an extra set of pedals?} The fact that we were able to chat was different too...in the olympic (and shorter) races I have done so far, I've been working so hard that I've felt like I couldn't even say one word, let alone a complete sentence. At half iron pace, we were able to have an entire conversation.
{UPDATE: I just got this email from Toughman Tri. This is the guy I met:
"But we do go on and try to find meaning in the life that we have been gifted. An example of this is a charity called Medals for Mettle. This charity asks athletes to give their earned medals to kids that are battling Cancer.
Our TOUGHMAN Captain Michael Begg raced TOUGHMAN this year and promised his medal to a little 5 year old boy named Jackson who attended the race. When Mike arrived race morning and went to the back of his car he realized that someplace along his 1 hour drive to the race his bike had fallen off the back of his car. It was a mad dash but within 30 min Greenwich bikes and one of the racers had a bike and pedals for Mike to be able to race and fulfill his pledge to Jackson. As Mike ran across the finish line he saw Jackson waiting for him and put the medal over that little boy's neck. To see the joy in both Jackson and Mike was very emotional, something we will never forget."}
There were a few other guys that helped keep me going. I met up with a couple of guys climbing the last major hill between mile 9 and 10, and we talked about whether that last hill at Quassy or this one was worse. One other guy that got me going on one of my walking bouts towards the end, especially at mile 12, where he said that we still had a chance to go under 5:30 and we should just run until the end (I feel a little bit bad about edging him out in the last half mile...I suppose the least I could have done was to run with him the whole time). At the end of the day of the day, I missed that by 3 minutes, and I'm not sure where I would have found those minutes yesterday. I wish that I had found a couple of guys to run with that were exactly at a pace that I could sustain--they were either too fast and dropped me, or I dropped them (especially those guys that were chatting a lot), but it all helped, especially pacing up the hills.
I need to look at other shoe options--these have given me really bad blisters on both heels at Quassy, and again here on both toes, in addition to costing my toe nails. I will need to work on pacing, especially on hills. In the offseason, I also want to work on strength and muscular endurance. I don't know if it was because I was fighting a cold earlier this week, but I felt terrible running off the bike--and I'd run around 5-6 miles coming off of 60 mile bike rides before and not felt this bad. In any case, my hip flexors are probably still too weak.
On the positive side, I didn't have the same cramp or stitch that I have had in almost every other race. I think hydrating properly helped, as well as taking salt tablets throughout the bike and the run helped. This was the first race where I've supplemented whatever I was drinking with salt tablets, and I think it made the difference.
Run Time: 2:00:51 (32nd M40-44)
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| Why didn't someone tell me that my sunglasses were on crooked? |
Total Time: 5:33:22 (27th M40-44)
Summary thoughts:
I had a great time. It was a beautiful day for a race and I'm glad I did it, and made my time.
I'll be honest though and say that I always have high expectations for myself (Tony's pep talk about expectations helped, but I also can't help who I am), and I was disappointed that I walked so much.
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| My friend Angela's kids, Hailey and Lucy, made this for me and gave it to me at dinner yesterday after the race. It accurately depicts me swimming, biking and walking. |
I'm really glad I did this race, however, not only for the satisfaction of accomplishing a half iron man in itself, but also because having gotten the first one done, I can plan on how to do better next time. Even though I had never raced this course or any 70.3 for that matter and predicting timing might not be the best thing to do, I had hoped to finish under 5:45, with a 40 minute swim, 3 hour bike, and a 2 hour run, with 5 minutes for transitions. I was slower than I had hoped on the bike and the run, but only by a little, and really lucked out with the swim, because it was probably a short course.
I'm still thinking about whether I like the half iron distance or Olympic distance more...the pacing is definitely different, and the corresponding pain is different. When I blow up during the run, it's usually because I feel like my heart is going to explode out of my chest..here it was because I couldn't will my legs to move anymore, even though my heart rate never got that high. In any case, I already signed up for IMMT 70.3 next year (roll call: who's in for Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant 2014?) so I'll definitely have at least one more attempt at the 70.3 distance.
I hate giving up places and getting passed on the bike and the run --though I will always assume that Tony will catch me on the run (if he hasn't passed me on the bike) at some point during every race. I'm just trying to make sure that he doesn't catch me on the bike, and that he's not passing me in the first mile of the run like he did at Quassy. While I still want to work on becoming a better swimmer, I'm giving up places on the bike and run and want to get stronger on the bike and run in the offseason and next year.
Emma, Jack, Lauren,
If you ever happen to read this when you're bit older, hopefully you'll understand why I've done everything that I have, and why I've been gone all those hours, and why mommy and I are always trying to make sure you exercise and play sports and eat healthy. I once had a conversation with my doctor before I started all of this about exercising and I told him that I just didn't have time between work and wanting to spend time with you all to exercise. His reply was that I was thinking about it the wrong way, and that I should really think about the years I wouldn't have with you three, if I didn't change my lifestyle, instead of the hour or two each day I might miss to exercise. I also hope that you never get as heavy and unhealthy as I did--I've found that it's really, really hard to lose it and keep it off once you've gotten used to being a certain weight. I have also learned that triathletes come in different shapes and sizes, and the most important thing is that you're healthy and that you're comfortable with who you are and how you look.
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| This is one of my favorite pictures from when I was heavier than I am now. |
I think about this guy from December 2010 when I was 210lbs, and while he's still around since I still love to eat and drink (ALOT) and maybe some other stuff that I won't talk about here, he's usually hidden away (When are the next AGTC drinks?). I'm proud of what I've accomplished in the 3 years since then and hope to never see this guy again.
It's also been great to have the support of all my teammates from AG Tri and Coach Mike, which has made this whole endeavor more fun. It was getting really boring working out by myself, and it's been wonderful to make so many new friends. The text messages/facebook posts the day before were great, and Tony's pep talk via text was especially helpful in taking some of the pressure off.
I also have to thank my friends and colleagues for being supportive through this whole mid-life crisis of mine (and shaming me for being so fat to get me exercising and dieting even before that). I appreciative of the fact that they have kept the comments regarding all of the spandex to a minimum.
I'm indebted to Angela Sullivan for inspiring me to get into triathlon in the first place by running the 2011 NYC Tri, and for introducing me to Anthony Bagnetto, who worked with me early on and continues to train me. They were the early instigators/enablers/facilitators? of this whole thing.
Finally, and most importantly, I couldn't have done this without the support and encouragement of my family. I have to thank my kids, and I know (or think) that they miss me when I go off to train, and they always want to know if I won when I come back from a race…and when I inevitably tell them that I didn't, they want to know why, and who did. (My answer is always the same…"some skinny, fast guy." They were so excited during the NYC Tri when they got to watch the race from in front of our apartment building…when I got home after the race, they told me "Daddy! We saw the skinny, fast guy today!").
I also have to thank Kathy, who has been the best wife ever--letting me leave her with three kids for hours on end to train and race, without ever complaining, for the past couple of years. (At the risk of revealing how big of a nerd I am, she says that all of this triathlon training is much better than me wasting all of my time playing World of Warcraft, and much prefers the real life AGTC teammates that I have compared to the online guildmates that I had on WoW. I am a huge dork.) We've been together for over 20 years/married for 12, and she still amazes me. She gave me the best anniversary present yesterday--she let me race Toughman yesterday! Never mind the fact that I totally didn't think about the fact that it was our anniversary when I registered a year ago.
She is the best.
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