This week I finally decided to break my 3 year triathlon "fast" and registered for the Long Branch Sprint Triathlon Series. Went for the longer course, naturally, with about 600 yards of swimming, 20.6 miles of cycling, and 5 miles of running. I had A LOT of questions surrounding this race...
1) The bike itself. With a new fork installed and only a couple of rides on it, will it stay in one piece for the race?
2) My current fitness level. Three years of "mega" long slow distance training for ultramarathons does not translate well into a sprint triathlon. Picture a huge powerful semi-truck entered into the Indianapolis 500 among all those sleek cars.
3) My bike fitness is a HUGE question mark. With the bike only operational the past 3 weeks and only a couple of rides during that time, is a can of WD-40 needed to shake out the rust in my cycling legs?
Soooo...
I took it all in stride and just told myself to go fast until I fade, then act as if I was going fast. Of course this strategy was not going to give me an age group award, but I can still hope, right?
The day dawned nice and bright and got my butt down to Long Branch. Just as I was setting up my bike, the town's sprinkler system activated within the transition area, pelting unsuspecting athletes with jets of water, prompting a little bit of a panic among the masses. The officials had to swoop down and put cones on each sprinkler to stop the liquid conflagration from spraying water on those $7000 bikes.
And although that stopped the water from flying everywhere, the water started to exact its revenge by pooling into strategic areas where running shoes and shirts were placed, giving the triathletes a rude surprise during the race as they tried to put soaked shoes on their feet.
One thing I did was make sure that all of my stuff was placed above my bag so that only the bag got wet, not my critical clothes.
Once set up, the question of the minute was "wetsuit or not".
It's a 600 yard swim. Plus, my current wetsuit is notorious for clinging to me like crazy glue, so I decided to ditch the wetsuit for this swim.
As I arrived onto the beach I found that I would be in the third wave. OK, no problem as I scouted the buoys that made up the swim course. Two yellow ones on the right, and several red ones on the left. A typically easy course. Swim to the yellow buoys first, turn at the second yellow buoy, swim across to the red buoys, then turn for home.
Sounds straightforward, right?
Well, as the first wave turned at the second yellow buoy, that buoy had other ideas and started to drift away from shore. Looks like the second wave (the long course women) was going to have to deal with a longer course.
And of course, as the second wave came through that buoy, the buoy drifted even father out from shore lengthening the course even more for the third wave.
I was in that third wave.
A nervous laughter filtered through my wave as the buoy was hightailing it for France while the women were swimming after it.
Maybe I should have taken that wetsuit after all.
As we went off I quickly got into my customary position in the front of the wave. I might not be as fit as other triathletes, but I can still swim better than 90% of them.
I got past the first buoy without much pushing and shoving and made my way to the rebellious buoy which thankfully was replaced back to a more manageable position by the time I got there.
No incidents happened during the rest of the swim, but I was constantly bombarded by jellyfish as I made my way back toward shore.
Thankfully, these didn't sting.
I made my way toward the bike, got on my stuff, and said a quick Hail Mary as I got on my bike, hoping it didn't fall apart on the course.
Within a mile, my bike started falling apart.
Actually, the problem happened in an unusual area. As I was riding, a ring near the hub of my front wheel suddenly came loose and was dangling on the skewer. Thinking the worst, I stopped in front of Seven Presidents Park to take a look.
Apparently, all that was needed for the ring was to be screwed back into the hub. after hand-tightening the ring into place I got back on the bike and started off again, I lost about 2 minutes in the process.
But the bike rode well the rest of the way. In fact, it passed the test with flying colors.
Although I wish I can say that with my bike fitness.
The bike course was 2 loops around the area. I rode like a monster during the first loop. The second loop? When my eyes started to fall into the back of my head from the effort, I knew I was in over my head and had to slow a bit for the last 5 miles of the course.
I got back to transition, quickly pulled my running shoes on, and started onto the flat and fast 5 mile course.
OK, not fast in my case. But all the miles of running that I've been doing do tend to pay off in a bit of a different way. Although I barely broke 8 minutes per mile on my pace, I knew that I can hold that pace indefinitely. I basically knew what time I was going to finish by the 2nd mile of the course.
I stopped the clock at 1:47:45, according to my watch.
All in all, it was a great experience. Despite some minor hiccups, the race organization was impeccable, as I would always expect from Doug Rice and the Sandy Hooker Triathlon Club.
As for me, this definitely paves the way for my plans for 2012. The outcome of a certain lottery in November will depend on whether I'll be primarily training for triathlons or ultramarathons. If the outcome favors triathlons, expect me to be seriously training for them in 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment