login
 Swim
Comments: The swim was in the Choptank river - part of the bigger Chesapeake Bay. We swim/bike people were the last wave to start. I wasn't paying attention to the water and have no proficiency at "reading the water". The Race Director, Vigo, made some comments how rough the water is and later some comments on how it calmed down a bit since the earliest wave of swimmers. I didn't really care or think much about it. For an hour I saw people starting/swimming/finishing. I'm going to be one of them – period. So we start and I eventually find myself in the thick of things. So I'm thinking 'holy shit, what have I got into?'. The water tossed my ass around – up down – up down. The good thing is it was pushing us out. I managed to get myself to the turnaround point and headed back in. Now those waves were not pushing our butts along, but coming at us. Yikes – Now we are having some fun. UP DOWN – UP DOWN and worse than before. Vigo's (Race Director) words were in my head humoring me "This ain't no disco. This isn't your swimming pool". Yeah buddy! I had a tough time spotting the buoys and stopped a lot to find them. I stop too much – gotta work on that. I tried some bilateral breathing to maybe help with the waves but I ended up just swallowing water bilaterally. Nope, the answer here was to find harmony with the waves and I came close enough to doing this so I could breath and keep moving forward. Some of us couldn't make out the exit ramp – maybe big neon lights next time. I had rehearsed my exit as I was swimming. I think I did good with moving into taking the wetsuit top off and peeling down what I could as I went to the bike. It was excellent open water practice. I've had calm water swims, so these tougher ones are valuable training opportunities. I loved it – in my own special way. What would you do differently?: Stop less to site.  Transition 1
Comments: Took too long to get out of the wetsuit. What would you do differently?: try body glide  Bike
Comments: My heart rate was high on the bike starting out. I went in a easy gear until the HR came down some. Between here and about the midway point I draw a blank. I just rode. I did get passed by several. Not much happening as the fastest people were in earlier waves. I noticed that my toes and feet were NOT in pain. I stood up, changed cadence, hammered the pedals – and the feet were still good. This was a miracle! No need to stop pedaling to press the toes or coasting while the pain subsides. Something miraculous happened out there at the Sunday Eagleman 70.3 and it was in my shoes. I hopefully can attribute my first pain free bike ride to sliding my custom orthotics into my bike shoes. If this solves the pain problem I'll be so happy. I'll admit, I was getting so discouraged. It is by far the highlight of the whole race for me – a pain free ride - my first ever. I made more of an effort on the second half of the bike ride. I started pushing it more and ended up passing some folks who passed me earlier and some others. I would stand up and do sprints when I wanted to pass people, spin higher cadence when the wind got to tough. In retrospect it's more how I should have ridden from the get go. Usually, but not today, toe pain and foot pain would strike with every change of effort. My limiter now seems to be legs, my legs get tired and I end up easing up. I finished 8 out of 13 in my age group. Since 6 of those faster than me earned places in the Overall and Masters category, I got 2nd in my age group. One might call this a miracle. When I saw this I laughed. What a wonderful world where I can be 8/13 and come in second on some scale. I like this. No award though. That was for first place only. Someday….. I drank much less than I expected. First hour was 22 oz of HEED/Perpeteum and the usual endurolyte tossed in the bottle. The rest of the ride was water, about two course provided bottles, and Hammer Gel – tropical flavor with caffeine. It worked. I did well with having the temps in the 70s. I would say optimum conditions for me. The course was windy and I stayed in my drops most of the time (no aero bars). What would you do differently?: Draft behind Natascha Badmann. Post race
Warm down: Talk, walk around What limited your ability to perform faster: Me Profile Album Last updated: 2006-06-16 12:00 AM
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
View profile
Add to friends
Go to training log
Go to race log
Send a message
View album
CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK
United States
Columbia Triathlon Association
Sunny
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = 40-44
Age Group Rank = 2/7
Pre Race Registration – SAT
I saw Natascha Badmann who is a world champion from Switzerland on Saturday at the pre race Expo. I got her autograph - first time in my life I asked someone for an autograph. I didn't know if she was from the French or German speaking part of Switzerland, but figured she knew German regardless so I had fun tossing some simple words of my Bavarian laced German her way. I need the practice.
It was the usual pre race routine. We had to rack our backs the day before. I setup my transition area and chatted with various folks and went to the porta john 3 times at least. I watched the Pros take off and next several waves take off on their swim .
I was looking forward to this race. Just doing the swim/bike was a nice way to test the Half Iron distance and leave off the potentially brutal run for when I've trained for it.
Talk, walk, stare at the other waves take off.