The official triathlon thread

[Moliere]

Forgot to mention my times:

500M Swim: 9:58 (However I know this is wrong as it's likely closer to 13 minutes. One guy I know had his Garmin with him and his "official" time was about 3 minutes off of his Garmin time).
T1: 2:34
14.1 mile Bike: 48:39 and 17.3mph
T2: 2:22
2.1 mile Run: 18:23 and 8:45 min/mile

[Moliere]

That ice bath was awesome. I was way overheated during the run (I walked more than my fair share - no shame in it) and spent a lot of time cooling down in that plastic tub.

Your swim sounded a lot like my first tri swim, including the delirium on the way to the bike. It gets better each time.

FYI, they screwed up the timing for the sprint athletes - you need to add 4 minutes to your swim time and overall time to get the right timing. Doesn't affect the other legs or your overall ranking.

We're also going to do the CB&I tri next May. You want to join up for that one too?

I figured the swim times were messed up. I'm in for the CB&I tri as long as it doesn't conflict with anything else. It's near my home, which is good.

[Eddie]

Nice write up Moliere.

I'm registered for a sprint tri on Labor Day. Not sure I would do it myself, but my son wanted to try one, so I signed up to do it together. It is a pool swim - which will be good for him. Reading your write up just reminds me of more stuff I need to go over with him regarding transitions areas, the swim, etc.

Funny how you know you'll be doing another - because you know you can do better. That was my hook too.

Great job. Sounds like you had a great time.

[bluegoose]

Nice race report, Moliere.

Reading your swimming story sounds very familiar to most triathletes after their first open water swim. I've got a picture somewhere from my first tri in Iowa City. I was totally exhausted after the 800m swim, even being consigned to doing the side stroke for a good part of it, I was that tired. As soon as my feet hit solid ground I started walking in, even though walking was much slower than a couple of extra swim strokes would have been. I had no energy and running out of the water was out of the question. My wife took a picture of me in waist deep water, walking toward the shore with both of my hands spread out over the water with only a finger or two breaking the surface. It was straight out of a Victorias Secret catalog. No wonder why she had the camera clicking. Rowr!!!

[Moliere]

Nice race report, Moliere.

Reading your swimming story sounds very familiar to most triathletes after their first open water swim. I've got a picture somewhere from my first tri in Iowa City. I was totally exhausted after the 800m swim, even being consigned to doing the side stroke for a good part of it, I was that tired. As soon as my feet hit solid ground I started walking in, even though walking was much slower than a couple of extra swim strokes would have been. I had no energy and running out of the water was out of the question. My wife took a picture of me in waist deep water, walking toward the shore with both of my hands spread out over the water with only a finger or two breaking the surface. It was straight out of a Victorias Secret catalog. No wonder why she had the camera clicking. Rowr!!!

There's a lot more to mention, most of it uninteresting, but I will mention that at around the 250 or 300 meter mark of the swim I found myself drafting behind someone. I knew this because I could feel my stroke was easier compared to my movement but also because I could hear the person stroking in front of me. I would have stayed with him and drafted for quite a bit longer, but I had zero visibility. I couldn't even see my arms in the water let alone see this guy. I only got 15-20 seconds of drafting but it was enough to make me realize there is some benefit to it. I'd love to do a swim in a lake that I can actually see for a bit under the water as that would have helped as well.

[Pheidippides]

There's a lot more to mention, most of it uninteresting, but I will mention that at around the 250 or 300 meter mark of the swim I found myself drafting behind someone. I knew this because I could feel my stroke was easier compared to my movement but also because I could hear the person stroking in front of me. I would have stayed with him and drafted for quite a bit longer, but I had zero visibility. I couldn't even see my arms in the water let alone see this guy. I only got 15-20 seconds of drafting but it was enough to make me realize there is some benefit to it. I'd love to do a swim in a lake that I can actually see for a bit under the water as that would have helped as well.

The secret my swim time - beat last year by over 5 minutes - was that I drafted behind a guy for about 500m. That, and I put a heluva lot of work into my stroke. Plus I started on the line this time and didnt hang back.

For those interested, my times were as follows:

1500m swim - 30:09, sixth in age group.
T1 - 1:27, first in age group.
Bike 28.8m - 1:12:58, 23mph avg, first in age group.
T2 - 1:23, first in age group
Run 6.2m - 57:35, 9:17 avg, eight in age group.

As you can see, the run was a disaster. I ran the first two at 7:50 or so, and then fell apart. Last year I did the run in almost 10 minutes faster - if I could have duplicated that I would have taken second. Oh well. It's not often you have a crappy run and still place. The field was pretty weak this year in my division.

[Joe Public]

Way to go, fellas. It sounds like it was a fun race.

[Joe Public]

I'm belatedly finalizing my race calendar for 2014. Is there any interest in an unofficial CUF tri event? Someone here (BigPiney?) said late summer/early fall is best. I'm looking at a sprint tri at Camp Pendleton near San Diego at the beginning of August (link), an Olympic distance race in Malibu in the middle of September that is quickly filling (link) and I could probably be talked into the Silverman 70.3 at the beginning of October (link) if there were sufficient interest. I'd also be up for something in NorCal, Nevada, Arizona or Utah, but I'm not as familiar with the races in those areas. Also, no Ironman distance for me until at least next year.

Anyway, it would be fun to get out there with some of you if schedules permit.

[Moliere]

I rented a wetsuit for the event next weekend. It's only a 500m swim but I figure since I suck at swimming (relatively speaking) I could use all the help I can get. So of course when it arrived I had to put it on and strut around the house. MJ wasn't impressed

[Eddie]

I've done with and without. Not sure I noticed enough of a different to make up the time it takes removing the dang thing at the end. I have a friend who wants to pick up a wetsuit that just goes from the waist down. He figures anything that keeps his legs up and him more on a plane can't hurt!

[Topper]

I wear one only for warmth. If the water is warm enough, I agree with Eddie, stripping when you are tired is a pain. However, most non-ocean swims are cold enough, I use the wetsuit.

[Moliere]

I wear one only for warmth. If the water is warm enough, I agree with Eddie, stripping when you are tired is a pain. However, most non-ocean swims are cold enough, I use the wetsuit.

I likely won't need it for warmth but honestly I have no idea what is cold water and what is warm. I just know that this tri will allow wetsuits without penatly up to 78 degrees. Today's water temp for the lake was 72 degrees. Surely that's warm enough to swim in without a suit, especially for 500 meters. But it's more for confidence given the almost disastrous swim I had at my first tri. It'll be interesting to see the difference in times between the two swims.

[Eddie]

My first 2 open water swims were with a wetsuit. Last year was the first time I tried without - it probably helped that I had some prior experience.

And it didn't hurt that the tri I'm talking about is Spudman - in the easy flowing Snake river that hauls your backside to the end of the swim leg no matter how fast or slow your swim stroke.

[Moliere]

CB&I Tri Race Report:

Prep: With the IT band still bothering me I resigned myself to swimming and some biking. My PT told me to just not do anything and let the leg heal fully, but I decided not to listen as I knew I could take time off after the race. I only ran once (the week before the race) in the two months leading up to the race as I wanted to make sure I could finish the run. My practice run was surprisingly good so I had some confidence.

I also elected to to rent a wetsuit this time. It was a bit sketchy leading up to race day on whether or not it would be wetsuit legal, which it was by a good 2 degrees, but I really wanted to see if it made a difference on the swim. I practiced with the wetsuit once in the week leading up to the swim and that gave me more confidence as I did 1,000 meters in open water without too much problem.

Race day: I had dropped off my bike the night before, which allowed me to sleep in a bit. I got to the transition area about 45 minutes before it closed and got set up. I ran into P-diddy and SHW right away, which was fun to see them. After chatting it up I went to my bike only to find a couple guys from my stake. There were plenty of other BYU guys walking around, which tends to be the case on Saturday triathlons as the bulk of races around here are on Sundays. Mormons tend to gobble up the ones that fit into their schedules.

Swim: This was a deep water start but not far from land (maybe 50 feet out). I positioned myself near the buoy but back 10-15 feet so I wouldn’t get caught in the fray. The plan was to wait 5 seconds after the gun before I started swimming and to go slow and steady in the hopes of exiting the swim in better condition than Clear Lake. The plan worked…..for the first 150 feet. Things were going well, and then I sighted and made an adjustment only to run into another swimmer. I think that contact got the adrenaline running and totally threw off everything. I made the decision to pull ahead of him. By the time I got to the first turn I was behind a pack of slower swimmers (or guys that were also struggling). I again made the decision to try and pull ahead of them, which I did, but by the time I hit the second turn (about 300 meters in) I was exhausted. I realized I had been stroking too rapidly since the first point of contact. I knew I was screwed. I’m too novice of a swimmer to handle the high heart rate, breathing, lack of vision in open water, competition, so I flipped over on my back and rested for 15-20 seconds all while kicking a bit. I saw a kayak turn towards me and thought dang, they better not think I’m in trouble so I flipped back over and swam another 50 meters. I flipped over once more and rested before swimming the final 50 meters while being totally spent.

As I exited the water I knew my heart rate was too high and I made the decision to walk to my bike, which was at the far side of the transition area. As I entered T1 I heard my name and looked over to see MJ and the kids cheering for me. It was awesome and quite possibly the highlight of my entire running/biking/triathlon career so far. I smiled and waved and proceeded to my bike. Total time was 14 minutes flat.

T1: I walked the whole transition as I figured I’d rather a longer time in transition than longer time on the bike. I now regret that as it would probably have been better to rest more on the bike while traveling 15mph instead of walking 2mph. Anyway, you live and learn but as I’m in this for fun and not to reach the podium it’s not a big deal. I got the wetsuit off rather quickly and everything went well. When I got on the bike I looked at my Garmin and my HR was at 167 (after a 3 min transition!) so I figured that swim was brutal. Total T1 time was 3:02.

Bike: My goal on the bike was to average 18mph, however when they shortened the course to 10.6 miles I figure I could push it a bit more. With my heart racing I figured I’d shoot for 18mph going out and try to get the HR down around 160 and then possibly push it on the way back. I also had a slight headwind going out. Although I was tired from the swim, my head felt 100 times better than it did at Clear Lake so going out I was around 19mph average and even passed a bunch of people. Coming back I averaged around 20mph being passed only by guys with tri bikes and Zipp wheels. Long story short, the bike went much better than expected as I averaged 19.3mph with a total time of 32:43.

T2: Feeling good from the bike I decided to hurry up in T2. The family was again right by my transition area and they were ringing cowbells and yelling for me. Again, this was the first time they’ve come out and it was seriously a lot of fun to have someone cheering just for me. T2 went very well. I’ve got a good system for transitions, just need to practice to make it faster. Total T2 time was 1:42.

Run: This is the part that I was worried about. I knew I could run 3 miles but wasn’t sure if I’d have pain or how I’d hold up after the bike. Due to my injury I never did a brick to prepare for this race. I set a goal of running 8:30 min/mile, which I could do in my sleep if I trained but wasn’t sure how I’d hold up today. I started out feeling really tired, in fact I wondered if I was going over 10 min/mile. I looked at my watch and saw 7:45 min/mile and thought it had to be wrong but everyone else was about the same pace so I figured my senses were just messed up from the bike and from not running at all before. I slowed down a bit as I didn’t want to burn out. The first mile was tough, brutally tough. It felt like forever. In fact, I looked at my watch hoping to see me past the 1 mile point only to see I was only 0.6 miles into the run. Ugh, I thought I wasn’t going to make it.

I’m not sure if it was a second wind or if I just got stronger as the run went on, but I ran negative splits and actually felt the best at about the 2.5 mile mark. It was probably a combination of both as well as the crowd cheering everyone on. I sprinted the last half mile, catching and passing one guy in my age group. As I passed the finish line I actually felt good, exhausted but good. I didn’t throw up, which is odd for me after a race like that. It helped that I didn’t drink too much, which was a mistake I made at Clear Lake. I ended up averaging an 8:20 pace for a total run time of 23:50 (my calculated distance for the run was closer to 2.95 miles instead of 3.1). Not a bad run for me considering the circumstances.

After race: The best part of these events is the after party. Plenty of food and relaxing, also hearing and telling stories. I hung out with some church buddies as I couldn’t find P-diddy (who was probably out cheering on SHW). This is a great race. It’s during a time of year that works well for a tri and the lake, while not being the best in terms of visibility, is relatively clean and not disgusting to swim in. I’ll very likely do this one again next year and keep it in the regular rotation.

Total finish time was 1:15:20 (my goal was 1:15:00 so I just missed it)

[PaloAltoCougar]

Interesting report and nice effort. Congratulations. And your swimming experience strengthened my resolve to stay on land.