Ashland Lions Metro West Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

The National Anthem almost brought me to tears. It was a beautiful and strange moment: 300 people in wetsuits and caps crowded onto a tiny beach, the flag being held up right in the middle of the pack, perfectly silent during the anthem and then cheering wildly.

Women were in the third and final wave; the sprint race was starting 20-30 minutes later. I hadn't swum this distance in a lake before and set very low expectations, hoping to come in under 45 mins. My 1600m in the pool have been running 36-41 mins.

Started close to the buoy line and hugged it throughout, as is my habit. The crowd spread out quickly and I only had opportunity to draft for the first 5 minutes or so. Breathing every 3rd stroke for the first half, felt great, and then thought I should be more conservative and started 3:2. Never felt winded during the swim and had no reaction to the pollen soup. On the home-stretch I paused briefly 3 times to frog-kick while coughing. Bumped into one man from previous wave, and I immediately said, "Oh excuse me!" He said, "Oh, no, that's fine!" quite politely. So much for triathletes trying to bash each other to get ahead. We're friendly in the BOP :) I focused on my stroke but also remembered to kick this time!

OOPS - I cut a buoy on the back side of the triangle (home stretch), thinking the green buoys were supposed to be on our right side. No, ALL the buoys, no matter what color, were to be to our left. I think the pre-race instructions were very confusing! But clearly 90% of the swimmers were on the other side of the buoy line; I angled over ASAP. Passed a bunch of women and also men from waves 1 and 2. I felt great throughout the swim: SO HAPPY! I noted the time I got to the beach, but I had no idea what time we started; I just knew we started behind schedule.

Swim faster. I could've pushed harder than I did. I reminded myself several times, "this is the only thing my shoulders really have to do today so work them harder! GO!" but I realize now I was afraid of becoming breathless, having bronchospasm, and then panicking in the water. I need to get over the fear of panicking. Probably I should practice burst/cruise and sprinting in the lake a bunch of times, get breathless, and realize I am not going to have an asthma attack. Or if I do, I don't have to panic about it.

Crazy long run uphill on a winding trail through the woods from lake to the soccer fields. I had to concentrate on not tripping over exposed roots and rocks, dodging spectators/dogs/children (seriously, people were all over the path while we were running up! Good Grief! Get your dog under control! Reel in your children!!), and not throwing up. Felt winded and surprisingly nauseous and fairly annoyed. I'm glad I was forewarned about the woods (thank you, BT race reports) and had brought crocs. Some really clever people stripped off their wetsuits just after exiting the lake, wore sneakers and dashed up the trail carrying said wetsuit. Woe to those barefoot people...they were pretty unhappy. Mine was a typical T1 time compared to the field; range 4-11 minutes. My legs could've run faster, but my stomach and breathing could not. Fairly disappointing since I felt so good during the swim, but then immediately felt crappy when I got onto the beach :(

dunno.

Dropping into the BOP here. After being out of pocket for nearly two weeks, I didn't think I would be able to run if I gave the bike segment my all, which I tend to do in the sprints. Mantra: "spin easy, just spin." Familiar roads, constant rolling hills, and stuck to my plan never to mash hard going up, just to spin in granny gear. I was determined to save my legs for the miserable shuffling I expected to come next.
On the second loop I pedaled hard on the downhills, remembering Roland's advice :) and trying to make the most of them. Thought of the Millers' challenges and perseverance in Nebraska and was grateful for the cool shade of our trees. Remembered mav's advice to dial it back at the end, and I stretched a bit. Toes and hands were tingly-numb at the end.

It was fun to pass my son's preschool, the school where he'll go to kindergarten, our church, the town Common, and the start line of the Boston Marathon - twice! Passing each of them gave me a lift.
Took 1 full bottle of water and 1 of dilute Gatorade; chocolate Gu at 10 minutes in, 50 minutes, and 90 minutes. Got a stomachache right at the end.

Skip the last GU? But I knew I'd be out on the course for more than another hour. Possibly I could have pushed just a bit more on the first lap. No regrets: I stuck to my bike plan and thus I was able to get through the run.
I really do need to learn some more lyrics. I went through Zip-a-dee-do-dah, Amazing Grace, and Don't Rain on My Parade several times each, and then I just couldn't come up with anything else besides humming! Dang, not having my iPod during a race just stinks.

My real time inside transition was 1:56, but I spent 2 mins detouring over to portopotty (checked my watch upon leaving and re-entering the run-start chute!) which counted in the run time. So I shifted two minutes from my run to T2.
T2 times ranged from :29 to over 5 mins.
Moving pretty slowly when I first stepped off the bike, but tried to hurry. Changed my shirt, can my stomach handle another gel? and should I change socks - nope, they're fine, GO!


Not change shirts, not think about whether to take a gel, just take it and go. Get shorts with a pocket for a gel.

I'm actually quite happy with this! I'd read in a BT coaching article that one's Oly run time should be no more than 10% longer than one's open 10K time (WHY is that ideal? arbitrary?); so I set that as a goal. I thought 66 mins was the best I could possibly do, and I dreaded being slower than 75 mins. Thought I would do run 10mins/walk 1 min intervals, but that didn't jive with the hills. I walked the first 3 water stations, then I walked for ~45 seconds twice in the second half, then I walked up Ashland's version of The Hill Of Curses. It was nice to chat with two other strugglers as we walked the final uphill together and encouraged each other. The three of us had passed each other back and forth during the run. Had a sloshy stomachache for most of this, didn't take the last Gu, quit taking water halfway.

Couldn't have done anything different yesterday. I hope to improve with time and training.

Found my family right at the finish, got some water, sat in the grass with the kids. Stretched later while listening to the awards. I felt humbly grateful for the privileges of health, opportunity, and mean$ that allow me to pursue this crazy fun. I remembered not to take it too seriously. I decided that I am CURED of the temptation to register for a HIM this year: Oly is indeed a distance to be respected [mav].


Sick since the last sprint, really run down going into this, felt insufficiently prepared having missed gobs of workouts in June, still coughing a lot. But for my first Oly, I'm satisfied! Shout out to the Tri-maniacs! I met all my time goals, and there was no puking, no crying, no bonking, no crashing. Where do I sign up for another one ?? :)


The course was great except for T1, but that's a special feature of this race. I'll probably do it again because it's so close to home, beautiful setting, and it's an inexpensive Oly. But it's not a stylish, professional-looking, tightly-run ship like a MaxP race.